Player Killer Killer
by SemiInsaneCentipede
Summary: My name is Rin. I am not proud of the story I am here to tell, sometimes I wish I had died, other times I am grateful that I survived. Many people were trapped in the death game Sword Art Online, and many died as a result. I find it sad that one person's decisions can create such a death toll, both the decisions of Kayaba Akihiko and those of my own.
1. Chapter 1

**Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 1**

 **Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with my first fic! I had no clue what to write for the summary, so I think I made Rin sound a little more badass than intended. Anyway, I do not own Sword Art Online, the characters, or anything to do with it other than my own characters.**

Have you ever wondered why the completely useless people in our societies are allowed to live? They provide no benefits to anyone and bring the rest of the world around them down with them. Some people exist solely to mess with and ruin the lives, hopes and dreams of the people around them. How do I know this, I hear you ask, the answer to that question is quite simple. Three of the aforementioned useless people are standing in front of them. I hate them. Now while I dislike all those kinds of people in general, these three are special cases, yes sir, they are the whooooooooole package. Why have one when you can get three? That's right, in front of me I have a perfect display of all the crappy aspects of humanity mixed into one person, and then multiplied by three. But seriously, these guys probably had a combined IQ of twenty. Also, I just can't stand it when they talk; their voices irritate the crap out of me.

"Hey losers!" one of the three jeered, probably the leader of the three. I don't know the names of any of the three, even though they've been harassing me for about a year and a half. It's not that they've bothered to keep their names a secret, it's that I haven't made the effort to remember them. In my eyes, recognizing a pointless problem – the three people before me, for example – gives that problem a value, making it waste your time on it, whether it be trying fix the problem or simply fretting about it. I make an effort to _not_ know their names, that way I can spend less time thinking about them or acknowledging their existence.

Shino, my best friend, groans, he knows what's coming, he's been by my side throughout my year and a half of harassment. I feel a fist hit me in the stomach and I stagger backwards, winded. Shino was worse off than me though, he got punched in the face, which pisses me off a whole damn lot. I couldn't give less of a crap if these arseholes hurt me – that I can deal with – but harming my best friend? No, nuh-uh not happening. I feel a surge of anger build up inside of my chest, but the next punch to my shoulder knocks it out of me. "Gah, screw you!" I snap as it's the best I can come up with while my lungs beg for a reprieve. Why couldn't these guys have attacked us at school? Not only because there are teachers there, but because I happen to keep a sizeable knife among my things specifically for these types of people. The only reason IU haven't used it is because there are too many witnesses around. But we are not at school; I have no weapon here.

Shino has a bruise on his face, it looks nasty, and his face is contorted in a grimace of pain as proof. Rage wells up inside me again, and this time I am not stopped from acting. I grab the nearest prick's head and jerk it down violently, at the same time I bring my knee up to meet their jaw. The sickening crack of revenge as my knee makes contact brings an uncontrollable grin to my face; I love it when these kinds of people get what's coming to them. Hands wrap around my body and my feet leave the ground and I am thrown – none too gently, if I might add – into the cement sidewalk, my head hits the ground with a crack that echoes through my mind. "N-no, Rin! D-don't…" I hear Shino splutter, his hand outstretched to me. I grit my teeth, I won't allow myself to fall into the depths of unconsciousness, if they see that I'm out of it, they'll all just turn to Shino.

After a minute of kicking out grounded bodies, the three apparently gave up, or just got bored – either works – but it means they finally left us alone. "C'mon guys, let's go. SAO starts in an hour and I'm not missing it." With that, the three leave and bless my vision with their absence. Shino manages to sit up, his head in one hand while the other searches for blood. "You okay, Rin?" he asks and I try to sit up, but my whole being still feels jarred from the impact of hitting the concrete and I groan. "Don't worry, I will be." The sound of footsteps getting closer registers in my mind. "Hey, are you boys alright?" A woman leans over me, a police officer by her uniform, she looks concerned, but this only serves to make me angrier. I grab her by the collar of her uniform and pull our faces closer. "Where the hell were you thirty seconds ago?!"

"Hey Rin," Shino says "remember what that guy said?" We're walking back to our houses now; we were neighbors and had become friends while walking to school. "Which one?" I ask, I'm still a bit annoyed; the officer had only helped us to stand, surely it's obligatory to drive the victims home? Well apparently not. "C'mon man, it was like, three minutes ago." Shino tries to jog my memory.

"One of those three, I don't care." I snap in return, but he just smirks.

"He said that SAO starts in an hour, less than." I look up at my friend and smile. We've both been looking forward to this day, in fact, that game is the reason I'm in Japan in the first place. My father is a well-known graphics designer, so when he got a personal call from Kayaba Akihiko – the creator of Sword Art Online – he told me to put more effort into my Japanese classes and pack my bags because this would be the biggest job of his career. Being a major part of the creation process, my dad received a free NerveGear and a copy of SAO once it was released, which he graciously gave to me for my birthday. From there I managed to pull some strings to get the same deal for Shino, who was utterly ecstatic when I gave it to him, he probably would have hugged me if the risk of dropping the gifts was not so real. We'd promised each other that we'd meet up in-game and adventure around together. "Haha, yeah, he did say that. C'mon, race you home?" I teased.

"Let's go!" he responded and we both took off. Or at least, we tried to.

"Ow, ow, my legs!" I cry out in pain, and Shino follows suit.

"Ah geez, those pricks screwed my ankle." In short, we kept walking.

It took us about half an hour to get home, which was probably for the best, we wouldn't have been able to contain out excitement if we got home with a whole forty-five minutes to wait. "See you online?" Shino asks, I smile and nod, he turns to leave but I call for his attention. "Shino! What username are you gonna use?" I call out, he stops and turns to face me. "Well, I was thinking Shiniki, a combination of Shino and Ikimatsu. What are you going to use?" he answers me with a question of his own, and it takes me a minute to reply. "I was thinking of sticking with Rin."

"Booooooooooring! C'mon man, you use Rin for everything."

"Because Rin is my name!" I reply automatically; we've had this conversation before many times over.

"Yeah, and the rest of Japan doesn't need to know about that." Shino counters. "Everyone knows you shouldn't use your real name online." He continues.

"Which is why, if I use Rin, no-one would suspect that it was my actual name now would they?"

"Stalkers are everywhere, Rin." Shino tells me, waving his fingers in the air at me in an attempt to appear creepy. "Yeah, and I've just found mine."

"H-hey!" Shino protests, but I'm already walking to my house's front door. "Get back here!"

"Bye." I accompany me farewell with a casual wave over my shoulder.

"Don't just leave with the last word like that!" he yells after me.

"Leaving."

"AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHH – yeah, I'm going inside too." Shino cuts off his own scream of annoyance and walks into his own house.

"I'm home." I call out like every anime character ever to exist as I walk through the front door, taking off my shoes and leaving them by the door, a habit I'm still getting used to. "Hi son, how was your- OH MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?!" Dad starts, but ends up screaming.

"Daaaaaaaaaad, that's not nice; I was born with this face." I reply, offended.

"You know what I'm talking about." Dad says, realizing that I can't be too badly broken if I can be sarcastic. "I ran into a big wall of nothing." I tell him. Dad is aware of my opinions of useless people like the three boys (I think…) earlier, so he knew I'd been bullied, and by extension, so had Shino. "Humph. If this continues, I'm going to have to talk to the Ikimatsu household about this problem." Dad tells me. "No! Don't do that! Don't recognize those bullies as existing people!" I cry out desperately, my hands in a flurry making gestures rapidly, all of them meaning stop. "Anyway, I'm gonna go play SAO now, Dad." I turn to leave, but Dad stops me. "There's still twenty-five minutes until the server opens, Rin, why don't we have a talk about your harassment problems in that time?"

"No! I don't wanna talk about them!"

"That's why it's a problem! If you just talked to me about it, then I could do something about it!"

"No! It's my life; I'll call you if I need help!" I argue desperately.

I'm in my room now, and there's twenty minutes to go, I'm lying on my bed having a staring contest with by digital clock. I stare deep into its digital soul, glaring down at all the tiny electrical pulses that fly through it every second. 12:41, damn, nineteen minutes to go. Tell you what, Sword Art Online had better be one hell of a game if it's going to keep me waiting like this. I make sure that me NerveGear is plugged into the power socket and that it has full battery. I've only used the NerveGear once before, and that was to configure it, but I don't think that that really counts as 'having used' the NerveGear before; I haven't played any games on it yet. Eighteen minutes, this is getting boring! I go out to my room's balcony, Dad and I live in a two storey house, which is very common for this area of Japan, and all the bedrooms have balconies. We're originally from Australia, which really goes to show that Kayaba Akihiko really went all-out on SAO if he's calling Dad out from across the world's largest ocean, I also heard that he hired some coders from Europe and found some of the world's best multi-linguists to help with translations.

Sixteen minutes. The house next to ours belongs to the Ikimatsus, Shino's family, I can see him in his room through his window looking just as bored as I am. "Shiniki, huh?" I muse; I'll admit that it sounds pretty cool. I think of my own last name: Waters. Can I make anything out of that? Nah, too much effort, besides, Shino's going to expect to meet up with a Rin rather than anything else. I guess I'll also be seeing those idiots who beat Shino and I up from before in-game as well, I wonder what their names would be? I doubt they'd point themselves out by calling themselves something along the lines of 'Douchebag,' now would they?

I space out for a moment, then bring myself back to reality and check the clock: 12:57, three minutes to go. I pick up my NerveGear and stare at it intently, it's quite heavy, which is why you have to lie down when you use it. Also because it makes your entire body go limp by disabling your motor functions, I wonder how it does that, anyway, does it probe your head or something to do it? Send out an electric charge? I don't really care how it does it; I'm just trying to distract myself so that I die from anticipation. 12:59, one minute left. I check that the SAO disk in the NerveGear, put it over my head and lie down on my bed. Okay, deep breaths, I know I'm excited, but I gotta have a cool face on before I lose complete control over my physical form. The visor of my NerveGear tells me that it still has full battery and that it is _still_ 12:59. The only noise is silence as I stare intently at the small clock in the top right-hand corner, then suddenly: 13:00.

"Link, start!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the second chapter of Player Killer Killer. I do not own anything other than my own characters, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 2**

Colours flashed past my eyes, and then everything went white. Five blue circles appeared at the bottom of my field of vision, labelled with one of the five senses on each, then they all moved to stack on top of each other on my right, the words on them changed to read 'OK!' Another box appeared asking for my username and password, which input themselves no sooner then they crossed my mind. Yet another message box appeared confirming that I was playing in English (Australia), I may have studied Japanese and moved to Japan to play this game, but that did not mean my mind was wired to understand Japanese automatically; I happen to like English. Somehow the confirm button was pressed without me physically doing anything, which I thought was both cool and a tad creepy at the same time.

I found myself lying on the ground, or what seemed to be the ground; I couldn't really tell what it really was. It was transparent and appeared to have no substance, yet it felt solid. I stood up, my injuries from the real world not affecting me at all. It then occurred to me that I could move, there was no longer some disembodied being making the decisions. I looked around, but there wasn't much to see; it was all pitch black, yet I could still see myself. I looked down at my feet to find them encased in brown shoes, I could see my pale hands; they seemed so real. A semicircle of message boxes appeared around me; they were customisation options.

I got to work adjusting myself, black hair, blue eyes and so on (most of the features I chose were very similar to how I looked in real life, because I couldn't really imagine myself looking any different). I decided against messing around with the facial features, touching them never turns out well because you can never quite get it back to the default and you always end up looking weird, _always,_ height, semi-tall, weight, enough to be called healthy. I changed my starting clothes from their initial dull colours to a green long sleeve shirt and black pants, the only things that I didn't get to choose was the brown shoes and chest plate. A short sword appears in front of me, seeming to be levitating in mid-air. I reached out to grab it and I am given a short tutorial on how to use the menu and inventory, using items et cetera. One final text box manifests itself in front of me with a keyboard beneath it asking for my player name. I take a deep breath; this is it. I enter 'Rin' into the box provided and colour surrounds me once more.

Welcome to Sword Art Online!

With a sound like a sigh of relief, the world turns white, then reassembles itself to form a hard floor beneath my feet – one that I can see this time – two storey buildings in a wide ring around me, but not modern houses, these ones were made of large stone bricks, some of the roofs made from thatch or wood, like something straight out of a medieval painting, except about a hundred times more awesome. Other players were in all directions, many of them appearing out of bursts of blue flame. I was about to go and explore the town more, but then I remembered that I was supposed to wait for Shino, or Shiniki, I should say. I can't see anyone with that particular name tag, I'm almost certain that he'd know to stick around; besides, he probably got stuck in the many customisation options.

Fifteen minutes. That's how long I had to stand around waiting before I finally saw someone with the name Shiniki. "You took your sweet time!" I call out to him and I get a good look at his avatar as he turns to face me. He has green hair, boyish face, he is taller than he is in real life, more muscular, he has brown eyes and tanned skin and he's got the default short sword at his hip and a blue shirt beneath his chest plate and dark grey pants. He walks up to me after locating my name tag among the thinning crowd. "Yeah well, I was playing around with the gender customization options." He tells me, at least his voice is still the same. "Oh were you now?" I ask and he nods enthusiastically.

"Yeah, you know, if you switch genders, a whole new set of customisation options appear."

"You perve- wait, they do?!" I exclaim incredulously and he nods yet again.

"Anyway, sorry I took so long, I was... um... testing how far they went."

"You only did it so you could- no, never mind, let's just get out of here." With that, we both smirk at each other and sprint off down one of the roads leading out of town.

The boar charges at Shiniki, who hastily brings up his sword to block the oncoming attack, the beast comes to a complete stop upon hitting the sword, Shiniki staggers back, but neither side takes any damage. Seeing an opportunity, I run up and stick my sword into the boar's side and the curved health bar above its head, which had previously been red, got shorter before it disappeared completely. The boar starts glowing, and then explodes into white, blue and green polygons. "Woah, thanks Rin! I thought I was a goner there!" Shiniki tells me gratefully, I look up to where me health bar is, beneath it is a smaller version, representing Shiniki's heath points. "You didn't take any damage." I state and he chuckles.

"Yeah, and if you hadn't have stepped in, then I would have!" I look at him, unimpressed, but he genuinely seems thankful. "Whatever man." I dismiss him and turn my attention to the message box that has appeared before me, telling me that I'd just gained twelve experience points and asking me if I wanted to keep the boar pelt. I hit the confirm button because... I guess you can sell pelts? I think all they do is hang on walls and get turned into clothes. "Alright, eight exp.!" Shiniki exclaims. "Good start!"

"So that's where the rest of my points went." I mutter, but I'm happy on the inside; that was the first monster we'd fought, and my first kill. "C'mon, let's do it again!" Shiniki says enthusiastically and I nod in reply. "But this time you go up front." Ha adds.

"Alright."

We locate our next target and close in, Shiniki sneaking around the back of the boar with myself in front. Once I'm fifteen metres away, the boar looks up at me and charges at me head on. Now that I can see this thing running full-throttle at me, I decide against blocking its charge and step to the side and make a wild slash at it as it passes by me. My blade strikes true and the boar's health drops a little, but nowhere near enough to take it out of the green. "Damn it Rin, you were supposed to block!" Shiniki yells at me as he runs to catch up with me. "Sorry, we'll try it again." I circle around the boar, which has finished its charge, and is now recuperating. Then, once again, it charges headlong at me, demonstrating a real variety in its move-set. I hold my short sword in my right hand, put my left hand behind the tip of the blade and hold the weapon horizontally to intercept the oncoming attack in the nick of time. "Shiniki!" I call out because I don't know how long I can hold this thing back, it's moving around, trying to get away from me, but apparently it doesn't know how to move backwards. Shiniki comes running in, sword raised above his head, the blade glowing red. He leaps into the air and slashes down on the boar and its health bar drop from green, to yellow, to red. The boar squeals angrily, escapes my block and runs a few metres away. "What was that?" I ask Shiniki, confused.

"What was what?"

"You know, the whole red shiny blade thing." I say, attempting to clarify, but not knowing how else to describe what I saw. "Oh that. It was a sword skill, we read about them in an article, remember? They're like special attacks." He explains, now that he mentions it, it does sound familiar.

"Oh, right, sorry. I do remember now." I briefly reminisce to the article that Shiniki spoke of that talked about different sword skills for different weapons, (regardless of whether they were a sword or not) and how each skill has a different 'trigger position' to activate it. "Anyway, are you gonna kill that?" I ask.

"Wha- AARGH!" Shiniki screams and we both jump to dodge the boar's next attack. Note to self: kill enemy first, talk second.

We spent the next... I don't know how long we spent killing boars in the fields, but now we were both level three, and both of our inventories were full of boar pelts. We'd made sure to clear the hill before we dropped out guard and sat down atop it. "This is... nice." Shiniki says as he lies on his back. "The grass feels so real, and the sunlight feels so warm." He elaborates as he stretches his arms above his head. "Yeah," I agree "they really went all out on this." We both sigh in unison as we bask in the sunlight, appreciating everything about the game.

 _DOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGG!_ A bell sounds out across the floor; it came from the town we were in earlier, the Town of Beginnings, even though that place can be seen in the distance from here, we heard it as clear as day. "What the hell was that?" Shiniki exclaims in surprise.

"A bell." I reply and he casts me a withering glare.

"I know that, idiot, I mean, what _was_ that?" he repeats.

"A bell." I answer, he opens his mouth to berate me, but at that moment, he disappears into blue fire. "Wait wha-" I start to say, but I too, am engulfed in blue flame.

My surroundings suddenly change, high walls on all sides, a dirt floor; is this an arena. It's shaped like a large oval, but there are no seats on the sides, so I guess it's not an arena. But in all seriousness, what is the function of this place? It's just a large space of... space. Do the NPCs of this town find joy in standing around doing nothing? Is that why they made this place? Well, they're made up of ones and zeroes, so I guess they don't feel joy for a whole lot of things in the first place. There are eruptions of blue fire all around me and people, other players, are appearing from them, looking just as surprised and confused as me.

There is a flashing red hexagon in the sky, its got words on it, but I can't read what it says. "Does that say 'error'?" Shiniki asked worryingly, and no sooner had those words left his mouth, the whole sky seemed to become red with hexagons in a giant dome over our heads. "Woah, that's a lot of errors." I mutter. A substance that looks suspiciously similar to blood starts to leak from between the hexagons, filling into an invisible bowl, then forming into the shape of an individual completely shrouded in a red cloak. Unless my dad somehow sneaked some sort of hallucinogen into my lunch, I am actually seeing what I have just described and it was not at all drug-induced. "And this would be the error." Shiniki says and I elbow him in the waist sharply. "Shut up, the joke's old now."

"Greetings everyone," The giant cloak spoke, its booming voice filling the arena "and welcome to Sword Art Online."

"What's going on?" A girl somewhere in the crowd asked.

"Don't worry, it's just the welcome ceremony." A man reassured them. The cloak spoke again, its arms raised as if looking for a hug, or a priest preaching to a crowd. "My name is Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of Aincrad, welcome to my world." The cloak now known to be Kayaba Akihiko continued his speech. "As many of you may have noticed, the logout button has been disabled, I assure you that this is not an error, this is the way that Sword Art Online was designed to be." Crap! I'd completely forgotten about logging out! Dad's probably going ballistic in my room at the moment, trying to lecture my unresponsive body to no avail. "Crap! Mum will have me arse on a spike once I get out." Shiniki mutters, his head in his hands. "And my NerveGear." He adds, in a somewhat more concerned tone.

"There is now no way to revive players; this marks the end of the tutorial, and the official beginning of your new lives." Kayaba continued. "Once your HP reaches zero, it's game over for you, and your NerveGear will release a microwave pulse into your brain, ending your life, and your character will be deleted from the SAO database. Forever." Shiniki was next to me, crouching down on the ground, head in his hands. "Why?" He asked no-one in particular. "Why would he do this?"

"Now, you're probably wondering, why would I, Kayaba Akihiko, creator of Sword Art Online, do this?" Kayaba proceeded, and Shiniki stood up. "Oh. How convenient." He muttered.

"I yearned to create a world of my own imagining, one of which I could control the fate of. As you can see, I was successful in that endeavour."

"Despite the warnings clearly outlined in the NerveGear's owner's manual, the friends and families of some players have tried to forcibly remove the NerveGear from the heads of some players. Two-hundred-and-thirteen players have died thus far because of it, and there has been widespread panic across Japan because of it." Kayaba explained, bringing up message boxes displaying images and videos of grieving families and victims. "The only way to escape is to fight your way to the top of Aincrad and defeat the boss on the hundredth floor. Only then, once Sword Art Online is completed, will the surviving players be logged out."

"Th-that's insane!" someone nearby muttered disbelievingly.

"You expect us to believe this crap?!" Another yelled. I look over to Shiniki, he looks shaken, and rightfully so; we've all just been handed the worst kind of ultimatum. But for some reason, I feel normal. Fear? Terror? I feel neither.

"There is one last thing." Kayaba announced before the crowd could get too out of control. "I disprove of liars, and thus, I believe that everyone should play as themselves." A full ten seconds of silence passed, before suddenly, everything erupted into blinding blue fire. When I could see again, I saw a message box in front of me that read 'Admin gift!'I hit the accept button, hoping to be awarded the most powerful weapon in the game, only to be misguided and finding myself holding a mirror, my look of disappointed expression staring back at me. Okay, let me rephrase that: I could see the _real_ me staring back at me. It was my choppy black hair, my green eyes, boyish face, smooth skin, my- well, I could go on, describing each and every one of my incredibly sexy features, but I wouldn't want to invade the dreams of too many people (Please, allow me my delusions of self-confidence). I look over to Shiniki, whose body has been reverted to Shino's. Black hair, dark brown eyes and pale skin that suggested he spent more time than was healthy inside. He was shorter now and less muscular as well. Our bodies are actually very alike, and by that I mean pathetically flimsy and weak; it's a good thing that out strength in this game is just a number.

There was a very loud chorus of surprise from everyone else in the arena. "You're not a girl!" One exclaimed. "You're not seventeen!" Another responded.

"You're not eight feet tall!"

"You're not an extremely rich Iberian prince looking for love!"

"And you're not a little girl!" There were more, but Kayaba was talking again. "There, I have revealed you all to be whom you truly are. Personally, I expected more. Anyway, good luck." There was an audible _pop_ and Kayaba Akihiko disappeared and the sky cleared (I'm a poet, and I didn't even know it. Oh stop groaning.)

Silence.

And then... Panic. Fear. Terror. Horror. We are trapped inside a death game.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the third chapter of Player Killer Killer! Man, for some reason this chapter felt like it took forver to write, but here it is. As per the usual, I do not own Sword Art Online or anything to do with it other than this fic and my OCs, please enjoy.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 3**

We ran. I grabbed Shiniki by the wrist and pulled him out of the crowd and from the arena. "Rin!" he called and I stopped running, letting him stand for himself. We were standing in the middle of the town of Beginnings' main street with market stalls lined the street on either side. "What is it?" I asked him urgently. "I get it, you don't like crowds and you want to go, but are we at all prepared?"

"Huh?"

"C'mon man, we need better weapons, armour, food, potions and food!" he explained.

"You said food twice." I point out but he waves it aside.

"I'm hungry, now come on! We've got to sell all these boar pelts as well."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about them." I mutter.

It only took us five minutes to sell everything and buy better equipment as most of the other players were still stuck in the arena crying or at a complete loss for words. Their surprise and confusion is very understandable. I sold my mirror in addition to the pelts as they fetch a high price and with the money gained, I bought a rapier and sold my short sword, and then bought some food and potions. I don't know why Shiniki was complaining about being hungry earlier, I mean, there _is_ a hunger de-buff, but I haven't gotten it yet, so it doesn't make sense that he would have it. I think it's just because he's so used to saying that he's hungry in real life.

"You bought a mace?" I ask as soon as the two of us regroup. Shiniki has sold his chest plate for a better one, and sold his short sword to buy what is essentially a brick on a stick. "Yes Rin, I bought a mace. They do a lot of damage in one hit, that way you can't steal my kills!" Shiniki says, his voice rising in volume as he spoke, I smirked; I had been doing a lot of that earlier. We headed out of town just as the street begun to fill up with players who had recovered from being handed a death sentence. No-one was smiling as they had been upon entering the game; all the joy had been sapped out of everyone.

We came to a fork in the road, we were well out of town now, and there was no sign that told us what was down each path. "Which way?" Shiniki asks; both paths look the same, other than a few minor differences like the placement of trees and such. Suddenly, we hear something disrupt the quiet of the fields; it gets closer... and closer. It sounds like a voice, but not one speaking words, more like it's saying one thing, but stretching it out. "It's definitely another player." Shiniki says as he looks back down the path we came, I look too and see someone running towards us. "Shiniki..." I warn, drawing my rapier; this may not end well.

But it turns out that there was no meaning for my caution, the player got closer, and the noise could be identified as screaming. Not an afraid scream, but more of an angry scream. The player got close enough for me to read his name tag: Kirito, it read. The boy ran, still screaming, down the path angling to the right. We watched until he had disappeared into the distance, and his unbroken scream faded into the air. "Do we...?" Shiniki started, then pausing as if unsure how to continue.

"No, we do not follow him, we go the other way." I tell him, and he nods hesitantly.

"Y-yeah."

"Is something wrong?" I ask; Shiniki is nearly never hesitant.

"No, sorry. It's just that now I feel I've been screaming wrong all my life." He responds, looking down the path Kirito had disappeared down somewhat dejectedly.

We've been walking down the left path for some time now in silence. My mind had begun to wander from topic to topic without really processing what it was thinking of. "Hey Rin." Shiniki says, snapping me from my stupor, well at least he seems to have gotten over his post-scream depression. "What?" I reply, I'm a little annoyed as I happen to like thinking stupors. "Where are we going?"

"Forward."

"Yeah, look, I get that bit, but do you know our destination?"

"Look down, Shiniki, see that road?" I ask him. Shiniki looks at me, eyes narrowed, he knows he's about to be the butt of another joke, but he looks down anyway. "Yes, what about it?"

"We're going to wherever the other end of it is." I reply and he groans.

"Touché." He concedes.

We walked in silence for another ten minutes before Shiniki spoke up again. "Riiiiiiiiiiin."

"Whaaaaaaaaaat?" I ask in the same fashion, my voice getting more irritated by the second.

"I'm huuuuuuuungryyyyyyyy!" he says.

"Then eat something."

"I don't have any foooooood." He moans, his stupidity amazes me sometimes, especially seeing as he was the one who was complaining about being hungry earlier. "Why didn't you buy any food earlier?" I ask, partially dreading the answer. "Chest plates don't come cheap," he starts and I groan "and neither do maces."

"Oh my god, you idiot!" I snap, I do not like maces. Any excuse regarding maces shall be discarded.

"Can I have some of your food? Pleeeeeeaaaaaase?" I close my eyes, groan again, and then open them again. I open up my inventory, get out a bread roll and shove it into his face. "Here. Eat this and stop talking like that!" my voice grows in anger as I speak.

"Mnf mnph."

"Rin."

"What the hell now?" I snap at him, as you can see, I have a bad temper that takes a long time to cool. "What is that?" Shiniki asks, pointing ahead, my eyes follow the direction of his finger. I see a large... something. It's wide and looks like it's made of wood, maybe some kind of tree? It does have leaves on top of it. The most noticeable thing about it, though, is that it is blocking the entire path. "It might be a bully, Shiniki. It's big, ugly, in the way, and serves no purpose better than being an utter nuisance for us." I guessed, only being a little serious; as I am now faced with the concept of walking _all_ the way back just to go down the other path.

There was suddenly a loud rumbling noise, and the big wall-thing _moved._ Shiniki let out a high-pitched squeal and leapt away from it, while I just stood there, ogling at it stupidly. A green health bar appeared above the wall as it got taller. It grew arms and legs, it was a large rectangular block of wood with two thick legs protruding from its underside and its arms seemed to be hanging off of its side, everything about it seemed to be made from rectangular prisms, except for the leaves on its head, which were like hair, and two small, yellow eyes opened towards the centre of its body, it was... hilarious. "Haha!" I barked. "Was my dad cracked up when he made this thing?! Holy crap, that's hi-" I was cut off as the thing let out a tremendously loud roar, so loud that it made little-easily-frightened-by-loud-noises-old-me shut up and desperately fight for dominance with my bladder to prevent it from emptying itself. The words 'Bulk the Bully' appear beneath the health bar, and I couldn't stop a smirk from sneaking onto my face despite my lower body's state of turmoil. "I was right." I mutter.

"I'm gonna hit it." Shiniki said, drawing his mace from his side and running at Bulk the Bully. I sighed briefly, trying to calm down, before drawing my own weapon and advancing in a more civilised manner. Bulk let out a roar and attacked with what I'm pretty sure was supposed to be a punch, but more along the lines of smashing its entire arm into the ground. Whatever it was supposed to be, it covered a large area and looked to be an extremely powerful attack, however it was slow and I easily sidestepped it. I jabbed at the arm with my rapier, but it next to no damage; I think I saw Bulk's health bar drop by a millimetre.

It was Shiniki who was doing all the real damage, his attacks weren't fast, but they had more power than mine. I'm pretty sure that there's more to this than what is in front of me, surely there has to be a weak spot; somewhere where critical damage can be inflicted. Bulk's health hadn't dropped much, maybe a tenth, if we're being generous. Bulk launched another attack identical to the first one, Shiniki was too close to Bulk for the attack to affect him, so it was me it was aiming at. I dodged again, but instead of running away this time, I climbed on top of the arm and ran up it towards the main body area, dragging the point of my rapier along its wooden flesh in the hope of dealing more damage. Experience was awarded according to contribution, and while I was happy for Shiniki to do all the heavy lifting, I wasn't about to be left behind.

Bulk lifted its arm back up, but I was close enough to its body that I could jump up onto its head before I was thrown off-balance by the movement. I slashed at the bushes that covered Bulk's head, searching for some kind of soft spot or... I don't know, a flamethrower, which would be useful in this situation. A rumbling noise emanated from within Bulk, and standing on its head, I could feel the vibrations shaking my body. It started stomping around, creating explosions of dirt and dust as its feet hit the ground. "Crap!" I heard Shiniki yell, he had been attacking Bulk's legs, so the fact that it was now moving so much was probably not beneficial to his cause. Standing still suddenly became a problem for me, what had been a flat platform had become the deck of a boat in troubled waters, and to add to my struggle, it turned out that each individual leaf on Bulk's head was an enemy on its own. They have next to no health, and I assume that they do little damage (I don't really intend to find out whether or not that observation is correct) but there are a lot of them, which could be a minor issue.

I may have been in the midst of being overwhelmed, but can I just say that these small leaf enemies are great rapier practice; it's just one poke and _poof!_ Multicoloured mess everywhere. It was pretty fun except for the times when they actually managed to hit me, I didn't like that part. "I'd better level up three times over for this." I mutter, I've probably killed over a hundred of these things now, but they're separate from Bulk, so I haven't been helping Shiniki at all. Bulk performed another arm smash attack, making all of the rocking stop, so I used that time to try and find a weakness. As I returned to my search, I noticed something. This 'something' was bright red, spherical, and just begged to be penetrated by my blade.

I was about to stab at it, but Bulk lifted its arm back up and started stomping again, I was thrown off my feet completely and I hit Bulk's wooden head hard... I think I sat on a small group of leaves when I landed, but oh well, I'm still counting that as kills. I stood again shakily, disregarding the leaves entirely now. I leapt towards the red orb and stabbed it. Bulk stopped stomping and its health dropped significantly, out of green, completely ignoring yellow and going straight to red, and right to the very end of the bar, if you don't mind. Shiniki swung his mace and smashed Bulk in the leg, depleting its health to zero, and Bulk exploded into blue, white and green. I would have celebrated with Shiniki had I not fallen from four metres in the air, landing right on my backside and taking more damage than those leaves had ever dealt me.

Both Shiniki and I advanced to level four, which restored all lost health and we each gained a considerable amount of gold and a small collection of items. The items I received included an advanced health potion, an agility potion, and a mace. "Ew, a mace." I groan, covering one eye as I scrolled through its stats. "Ooh, can I have it?" Shiniki perked up.

"I think I'll sell it."

"Hey! Are you even listening to me? I'll take it!" I turn my gaze to him.

"Can I sell your mace too?"

"W-what?!"

"Could probably buy you a half-decent sword with it." I muse, Shiniki was horrified.

"Hey, don't try to rule my play-style!"

"I'm not trying to rule your play-style; I just detest your mace." I reply.

"Oh yeah? What's so bad about maces then?" He challenged.

"They're big, slow, expensive and ugly." I explain, how can he not see this for himself?

"Is that right? Well your rapier's flimsy!"

"My rapier is elegant and quick, your mace is a brick-on-a-stick!" I respond. I'm rather proud of that rhyme. "Alright, I see how it is. I'll shove this brick-on-a-stick up your arse!" he shouts angrily.

"Oh yeah? Well I bet I can stick my rapier further up yours!" I return in the same fashion. Our argument ends with both of us falling on the ground laughing before I give in and give him the mace.

"Hey Rin, I got a weird item." Shiniki tells me, stepping closer to show me.

"That's a mace, they're all weird." I reply, not even looking.

"Not the mace. Here, look. It says 'Juliana's gold necklace.' What do you think it could mean?"

"Uh, that it's the gold necklace belonging to Juliana." I say and Shiniki's face deadpans at this

"Be serious, idiot."

"It's probably a quest item; someone else probably already got the quest." I guess, Shiniki ponders this for a good minute before speaking up again. "Rin, I have an idea, we should-" he starts, but I interrupt him. "Shiniki," I say, but he keeps talking.

"-try and find the-"

"Don't say it."

"-people who got the quest and give it to them!"

"Oh my god."

"What? We can only profit from it, we might even make some new friends!"

"Yeah, but we might make some new friends!" I protest, desperately trying to get him to abandon the idea, he sighs. "Rin..."

"Shiniki..."

"You've got to get out more, c'mon man."

"No! I'll... I'll go ahead." I say and Shiniki's whole demeanour changes.

"So... this is it then, is it? Our partnership ends this quickly?" he asks darkly, realising what I've done, I desperately try to back-pedal. "No! That's not it! I'll wait for you up ahead; I just don't want to go back!" I say quickly, Shiniki seems to accept this. "Okay, you wait for me. But I'm bringing back friends for you, and even if I don't, I'm going to make you get over your fear of people!" He promises.

"Please don't." I mutter, because one friend is enough for me.

"Well then, this is where we temporarily part ways. I guess I'll see you sometime later."

"Bye." I say. I've never really known how to properly say some sort of meaningful farewell. At least Shiniki understands this, smirking because he knows he won't get anything better out of me. "Bye." He reciprocates, then turns and walks away.

He disappears down the path and I wait for him to leave my sight completely before I continue on my way. After five minutes, I break down. I drop to my knees and grip my head with both hands. "Idiot!" i shout, my voice echoing off into the distance to be heard by no-one. I breathe deeply, trying to calm down before speaking again in a more controlled tone. "Now who'll protect me from..." I shudder at the pure horror of the thought "social situations?!"

 **If you guys remember the end of the first episode of SAO, Kirito runs out of the Town of Beginnings screaming angrily at the world, I thought it would be amusing to look at this from another character's perspective. Oh, and let me know if you didn't really understand what bulk was supposed to look like, because describing him was a bit of a pain. Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the fourth chapter of Payer Killer Killer. In contrast to the previous chapter, this one was a lot easier for me to write, no idea why. Anyway, I don't own anything other than my OCs, now that that's out of the way, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 4**

"Rin, get out of the bushes." Shiniki says, his face the very definition of unimpressed and disappointment. "Shiniki! You're back!" I exclaim and leap from the cover of a tree to stand beside him. "I can't believe you, Rin. You're the first player in Sword Art Online to discover this town, and you didn't even enter it!" he tells me, referring to the town ten metres up the road.

"But I did enter it!" I complain. "It was awful!"

 _Flashback_

 _I saw a town up ahead and quickened my pace, this is great! I'll be able to get all the quests and get better in general, Shiniki will be so proud of me! Now that I'm closer, I can't see any NPCs around, what's going on, are they all in the middle of having a siesta? It is the right time of day for it anyway. I took one step into the town and suddenly my ears were filled with noise, people jumped out of nothing and landed in front of me with confetti flying everywhere and showering everything. "Welcome Adventurer!" They all cried out. It was at that moment that I learned that the urination of one's pants was possible in this game. I screamed, ran backwards, and then dived into the nearest bush beside the road. Screw it, Shiniki's on his way here anyway._

 _End Flashback_

Shiniki sighs as I tell him what happened, holding a hand over his face. "Oh my god, you useless prick." He groans. "Well, I'm here now, sorry, I couldn't bring you back the friends I promised; they wanted to keep grinding in the fields."

"That is a very misleading thing to say out of context." I comment and Shiniki groans again, but not in disappointment this time. "Come on, let's see what quests are left, geez, how long does it take you to get over your shock anyway?" He asks, to which I shrug and he groans again.

"So, we searched the whole town, and we couldn't find a single quest." Shiniki surmises, sitting down opposite me. We're in the town's pub now getting something to eat and drink. "Damn it Rin." He adds. "H-hey! I didn't do anything!" I protest indignantly.

"I know, that's the issue." He replies and I quieten down. "Why are you so afraid of people anyway?" He interrogates and I shrug in reply, Shiniki rolls his eyes and leans in towards me. "Why did you even enter this MMO if you can't talk to people?" It takes me a minute to come up with a reply.

"I didn't think I'd actually have to talk to them face-to-face." I answer.

I notice Shiniki taking a particular interest in a waiter carrying a tray with several tankards of alcohol on it, and I can see the gears in his head turning. "Shiniki-" I start, but he's already talking.

"Hey Rin, I bet-"

"Don't say it."

"That if you get drunk, then you'll be able to talk to people."

"Oh my god, Shiniki, you're not getting me drunk." I snap, shutting his idea down.

"Aw, come on Rin, you're no fun. C'mon, you might even get a girlfriend!" He teases.

"Why would I want a girlfriend while I'm drunk?" I ask, then putting on a falsetto voice I continue. "What's that honey? Just let me get drunk off my head and I'll be right with you!" I then switch back to my normal voice. "No."

"Eh, wasn't a well thought out idea anyways." Shiniki mutters, a little miffed.

"In all seriousness, Rin, you need to work on your people skills." Shiniki says, his tone darkening slightly. "I can't do everything for you, I won't always be around. Look, I'm not saying that it needs to happen straight away, but at least make an effort." He explains. I can remember having this conversation with my father back in the real world; I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. "Shiniki, I-" I started, but he cut me off. "Di it for me, Rin. Please?" There was a long silence between us before I break it.

"Alright... I'll try." Shiniki smiles, relieved.

"Thank you, Rin."

"But only because you're the only real friend I've ever had in my entire life!"

"This is both heartening and sad coming from a fifteen-year-old." He says, unsure of whether to maintain his smile.

"Oh for the love of god, Rin, it's a freaking NPC! Talk to it yourself!" Shiniki complains as I push him in front of me. We're at the inn now, and we're going to get a room for the night, or rather, Shiniki is. "I thought you said you'd try."

"Yeah, but I don't wanna push myself too hard straight off the bat, also, this in the one that scared the piss outta me earlier. Literally."

"Fine." Shiniki groans, paying the innkeeper as we did so and we walked up a flight of stairs to get to our room.

I woke up the next day and saw an orange icon next to my health bar, upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the hunger de-buff. "Pfft, stupid game, I'll eat when I'm hungry, not whenever you tell me to." I mutter, which is followed by a deep, grumbling noise erupting from my stomach. Mumbling incoherently, I grab some food out of my inventory and chew on it until the de-buff disappears. At least this bread tastes like it's supposed to. Stale.

I stand up, re-equipping my armour and rapier before kicking Shiniki out of his bed. "Get up." I tell him, to which he replies with: "Piss off." Despite saying this, he doesn't actually sound terribly annoyed, maybe it's because his voice is muffled by the floorboards in his face. We exit the inn and find ourselves in the town centre with nothing to do, you know, for a death game, it's gotten pretty boring. "Hey Rin, wanna grind?" Shiniki asks all of a sudden.

"Shiniki... I-I didn't know you thought of me that way... I don't think I'm ready just yet." I reply, a bit flustered, but Shiniki scowls at me. "You know what I mean. Level four won't get us very far in the long run."

"Oh, that kind of grinding." I say, completely pokerfaced. "Yeah, sure, let's go."

We return from our grinding in the late afternoon, the enemies aren't much more diverse than around the Town of Beginnings, so once again, our inventories are full of boar pelts, plus the added money from selling Shiniki's old mace. "I don't think there's anything left for us here." I comment and Shiniki nods his agreement. "Yes, we're level nine now, we should move on." We head down the path out of town and Shiniki glances up at the darkening sky. "A night-time adventure, huh?"

"Yeah, this'll be fun." I say, stretching my arms out above my head.

I'd brought a torch while selling all the boar pelts earlier, so now I held it out in front of me with my left hand, while I carried my rapier in my right, Shiniki was right behind me, mace in hand. We could still see without the fire of the torch, but the sky was a dark grey now, so it wouldn't be long before we became totally reliant on it for sight. "Rin," Shiniki whispers urgently in my ear "don't look now, but we're being followed."

"What by, and how many?" I whisper back. There was a pause as Shiniki took a quick glance to our rear before replying. "It's players, I can only see two, but be ready all the same." He tells me and I nod.

"Likewise." I mutter. "Are we going to confront them?"

"I think we should, maybe we'll end up joining them." He says. I tense up upon hearing this, but I remember my promise to Shiniki and I swallow my fear. "Alright, but how are we going to go about it?" I ask before quickly adding: "And please don't shout out to them."

"Yah yeah, I hear you. Look, just slow down, let them catch up to us."

"Gotcha." I reply, lowering my pace.

"They're close." Shiniki whispers. "I have a plan. On my word, put the torch away and go to the very left of the road, I'll go to the right and we'll catch them from the sides and get some answers. They have a torch too, so we'll know where they are." He explains to me and I nod again.

"Got it." I whisper back, sheathing my rapier so that I can access my inventory and I wait for Shiniki's signal. "Now." He mutters, I de-quip the torch and our light disappears. I re-draw my rapier and jump to the left of the road and rush towards the light I can now see before me, I can hear Shiniki doing the same on the opposite side of the road. "Oh crap." I hear one of the players following us say as our torch goes out and a grin spreads over my face. Oh tactical advantage, how I've missed you.

I can see now that there are three of them, they still have the default armour and their weapons consist of a sword, an axe and a lance, the sword carrier has the torch. I can't see their levels, but I don't think they're too experienced, they don't even have their weapons drawn, which is a dangerous thing to do at night time, especially in an RPG. "Alright, hands up, you three." Shiniki says, stepping into the light, I circle around the back of the group and touch the point of my rapier to the lance carrier's throat, making them flinch. The three slowly raise their hands above their heads. "Good. Now, why were you following us?" Shiniki interrogates.

"We weren't following you! We have a quest down this road!" The axe carrier protests.

"Do you have proof of that?"

"I do." The sword wielder answers, slowly lowering her free hand to open her menu and pulls up a textbox which Shiniki quickly scans over. "Very well." He says, lowering his mace, an action I mimic with my rapier. "It can only be done at night time on this road." The sword wielder adds, as if trying to further solidify her claim. "Alright, we believe you." Shiniki says, raising a hand in an attempt to get her to calm down.

"What level are you two anyway?" The axe wielder asks.

"Is that really important?" Shiniki answers with a question of his own. Among players, levels could be a sensitive topic, sort of like the stereotype that you don't ask a woman for their weight. "Well I refuse to believe that I was ambushed by two level threes." He says with something akin to aggression growing in his voice, like he wanted to fight here and now, his gaze switching between Shiniki and I. I open my menu and select the option that makes your level appear beside your name, Shiniki does the same. I've never seen three people get so scared of the number nine in my whole life, I didn't let it show on my face, but I was bursting with laughter on the inside, I could tell that Shiniki was having a hard time suppressing his laughter as well. The three stepped away from us in unison, and then huddled together; clearly they were several levels below us.

The lancer, who was the tallest of the three, bent down to whisper in the sword wielding girl's ear, I used this time to hide my level again and get my torch back out. "Hey, um... maybe you two could help us?" The girl asked, I'm assuming that she's the leader of the three. The axe carrier seemed to be the only one who didn't like this idea and was trying to get the girl to reconsider. "Oh, is that so?" Shiniki asks. "Y-yes. We're all level fives, you see, and we're not entirely sure about this quest. It says it would be hard for level eights to complete, but the reward is too good for us to turn down."

"Allow us to confer." Shiniki says, turning to me and stepping close.

"What do you think, Rin?" He asked me, trying not to explode with excitement.

"Alright, but don't expect me to be all cheesy and friendly with them." I reply.

"You're not cheesy or friendly with anyone, not even me." He retorts. "All I get is sarcasm."

"Shut up, you love it."

""Hehe." With that, we turn to face the three level fives, two of which were nervous, the third, the axe carrier, was complaining to the other two about how they didn't need any help. "Good news for you guys, we'll tag along." Shiniki interrupted, and the sword girl smiled while the lancer looked like he'd just wet himself with relief, the axe carrier looked a bit pissed, but didn't say anything as we all exchanged party requests. The sword girl is Sineki, the axe carrier is Kukuroi, and the lancer is Ukakun.

"So, what's this quest about?" Shiniki asks Sineki as I look up to see three other health bars appear beneath my own larger one and Shiniki's. "We have to defeat an evil tree spirit." She explained.

"Well, I think we can be of assistance, don't you, Rin?" Shiniki asks me and I grunt in agreement. "Please don't be afraid of Rin, really, he's scared of you guys." Shiniki you bitch!


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the fifth chapter of Player Killer Killer! As usual, I do not own Sword Art Online, I only own my OCs**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 5**

We walked together as a pack of five. Sineki was at the vanguard with a torch, half a pace behind her was Kukuroi with his axe in hand, muttering about how he wasn't about to be taken by surprise again. Shiniki was next, he and I are the strongest in the group, he had his (urgh) mace drawn and was swinging it in small circles, behind him was Ukakun, the tallest in the group, and he kept his lance on his back. I brought up the rear, torch in my left hand, and rapier in my right. I was probably the least focused of the five of us at the moment as I was distracted by a warm, cozy feeling in my chest. What is this feeling? I didn't know that emotions could be felt so strongly in a game, or maybe it's just stimuli from my brain telling my body how to feel. Whatever the answer is, I don't really know how else to describe this feeling, I can't remember feeling it before. I'm sure it had something to do with travelling through a dark forest with allies. I felt safe.

"How much longer do you reckon, Sineki? I'm itchin' ta hit something'." Kukuroi asked, clearly growing restless and living up to the stereotype that the guy with the axe is a fight-obsessed barbarian. "I don't know, okay?" The girl replied, her tone suggested that she was used to constant questions like this from the axe-wielding boy. "Calm down you two," Shiniki interrupted, trying to keep the peace "chances are that this 'evil tree spirit' will find us. Also, try not to speak too loud, the monsters here all have very high awareness levels; we don't need any of them trying to kill us." He explained, then added: "Especially not in this dreadful lighting either." It was true, we couldn't see more than ten metres ahead of us, fifteen if we really strained our eyes. Personally, listening to these guy argue is tiring and boring, I may feel safe, but even safety can be boring.

Ukakun looks uncomfortable, like he's not sure if he fits into this group. I think I intimidate him a little, I mean, I did put my rapier to his throat after appearing from the darkness not ten minutes ago. However, even now that we're on the same side, he still seems very on edge. Sort of like he's in a discomfort burger, if you will, with Sineki and I being the bread, Kukuroi as the mystery sauce, Shiniki as the cheese and Ukakun himself as the patty. An interesting analogy, I know, but hey, boredom gives birth to creativity.

I started to drift off a little, but then the cheese – I mean, Shiniki – spoke. "Oh hello, what's going on over there?" The whole group stopped and I walked around to stand next to Sineki to get a better view of whatever was happening, Ukakun moved behind me to get a look as well. Two red eyes glared at us from the darkness ahead. No-one else seemed willing to move, so I advanced towards it, holding my flaming torch out in front of me and high above my head to shed more light. A white, wide smile appeared beneath the eyes, all the teeth were sharpened to a point. I'm sure this was supposed to be terrifying, but as the son of the graphics designer, I was actually a little disappointed, I mean, sharp teeth? Really? Why does everything bad have to have sharp teeth? Most dogs aren't mean in real life, they have sharp teeth, is my dad implying that having flat is inferior or that we can't be evil? Okay, I definitely over-thought that, but it's just that I've seen this hundreds of times. No hyperbole intended.

I sighed and threw my torch at it, the light shone on the 'face' and showed that it seemed to have some wispy black matter for a body and seemed to have no definite shape or structure. The red eyes glow brighter, the smile grows wider and a green health bar appears above it – about five metres in the air – with its name: Morna the Evil Tree. "Oh god." Sineki gasps.

"Finally!" Kukuroi exclaims, psyching himself up.

"Oh that's big." Shiniki comments.

"It's not a tree." I mutter to myself, very unimpressed, I mean, come on, if you're going to call an enemy an 'evil tree', at least make it a tree! Bloody hell, dad.

Wasting no time, I rush forward and stab at one of its eyes, direct hit! Its eyes must be its weak spot, as the health bar dropped a whole quarter, but not out of the green. "C'mon!" Shiniki yelled, moving to join the fight, mace above his head, already swinging down. "Yeah!" Kukuroi agreed, sprinting after him, Sineki was more careful about her approach, drawing her sword and advancing with both torch and sword. Ukakun shrugged his lance off of his shoulder, holding it with both hands, before moving in himself.

Morna let out an ear-piercing screech, very akin to a Nazgûl, and long, thin, black spikes shot out of its body like lightning towards us. I dodged two, but was caught in the knee by a third, Kukuroi had three in his stomach and Shiniki had one in each shoulder while both Sineki and Ukakun had been able to avoid being hit completely, Sineki had dodged, Ukakun wasn't inside Morna's range. I grunted and stabbed my blade through the spike and it pulled out of me and back into Morna's body. Morna wasn't kidding around; each spike was doing about fifty damage by my best estimate, we're only on floor one; this isn't a joke. Kukuroi's health was in the yellow, which signified a loss of at least a third of his health while Shiniki and I were still in green, so we were safe for the moment. Ukakun ran forward and tried to copy my earlier attack to the eyes, but his aim was a little off and he missed by centimetres, not achieving the critical damage which he desired. Sineki cut at the tendrils in Kukuroi and pushed him away from Morna while Shiniki bashed his own away with his mace.

I slashed at Morna, my successful hits leaving red gashes in their wake. I was trying to go for the eyes again, as anyone would, but I'd thrown myself to the side when I had dodged Morna's attack, so now I was on an awkward angle, making it harder to strike my intended target, but I was probably the best equipped person here to try and hit the eyes. The finesse and manoeuvrability of the rapier was far superior to that of a normal sword or a lance, it was longer than an axe and was light-years better than a mace (suck it, Shiniki). Another scream came from Morna, but this time I am aware of how to properly avoid his/her (seriously, is everything in this game genderless?!) attacks and I leap back, away from Morna, as far as I can and watch the spikes fall just short of me with a small smile.

My attention was drawn to the colours of my team's health bars, Shiniki was till green, however lower than me, but Ukakun went straight from green to red so suddenly, I look over to him and see five spikes poking into his body. Looking closer at his health bar, I could see that he only had two-hundred-and-seventy hit points, now only twenty remained. Sineki, it seemed, had noticed as well and rushed over to pull him away from the fight, she cut his spikes away and pushed him away with as much force as she could muster.

I was about to move in again, but Morna suddenly screeched again and I quickly dropped to my knees and leant back to avoid the three spikes that shot my way. "Crap!" I heard Sineki cry out as her health went yellow, which was followed by Shiniki groaning "Gah!" as his own health bar took on an identical hue. I cut away the tendrils that had been meant for me, then stood and thrust myself forward to land another hit directly in Morna's left eye. That damage, along with that which we has inflicted with smaller hits, was enough to push Morna's health down into the red.

I was triumphant for a moment before I scampered away from Morna. I hadn't fought a large variety of monsters yet, but after killing Bulk the Bully and separating from Shiniki briefly, I had been ambushed by two humanoid enemies called Kravens. When these Kraven's health hit red, their attack pattern would change, making them a bit unpredictable. I wasn't about to take the risk that Morna, a mini-boss type enemy, would be any different. "Get away!" I yelled and Shiniki responded immediately, but Sineki seemed confused and started moving her head, looking for the source of the voice, then it dawned on me. The only time I'd spoken since meeting Sineki, Kukuroi and Ukakun had been under my breath or to Shiniki quietly, Sineki didn't know the sound of my voice, and probably hadn't processed what I had just said.

There was no time. I sprinted over to Sineki, gripped her wrist firmly and pushed her away from Morna as hard as I could. In that same moment, Morna screamed a scream louder than any of the previous ones, its body seemed to shrink, then expand to be larger than it had been before, countless spikes shooting out in every direction. I do not know how many of them hit me, but I do know that it was enough to send my health to the verge of becoming red. "Crap!" I mutter and try my best to scramble out of Morna's reach as the spikes retracted, now all five of us at in relative safety.

I've got to end this; I'm the only one with the health, the speed, the weapon, the- okay, I'll stop procrastinating, I'm just scared and I think my pants are soaked. I try to open my inventory for a health potion, but it won't open, I guess you can't access your items while fighting a boss. I take a deep breath, mentally preparing myself, and then sprint at full-tilt towards Morna, who sends a spike at me, but I change my direction slightly and run in a circle around them. I'm trying to get closer to Morna's body and slashing desperately with my rapier at any spikes that get in my way or get too close for comfort. I'm close now, Morna's body is right on my left now, with my momentum, it'd be too hard to stop and try to strike at the eyes without falling off-balance or being stabbed. But I needed to do something, so I pulled back my sword arm and saw my rapier's blade glow green.

Oh, I'd forgotten about sword skills.

I attacked Morna from the side, releasing the skill and my blade shot forward and skewered both of Morna's eyes. Morna seemed to inflate and double in size before exploding into blue, green and white particles with a sound similar to shattering glass. Panting, I fell to the ground and rolled onto my back, letting out a relieved sigh as I did so, my heart leaping at the congratulations message box that appeared in front of my eyes.

Everyone levelled up, restoring us all to full health, I received an upgraded version of my current rapier and something called 'The Heart of the Tree.' Of course there was a large amount of gold distributed among the group along with an assortment of potions. It turns out that the quest giver wanted 'The Heart of the Tree' as evidence, so I handed it over to Sineki, who accepted it with a slight blush. "So, you guys will be heading back now?" Shiniki asked, a little disappointed when Sineki nodded. "We'll turn in the mission, and then stick around to train as we've had too many health scares in the last ten minutes. We won't be leaving there until we're all level eight, at least." She explained, she didn't seem overly excited about what she was telling us either, but she knew that it was necessary. "Alright then, see you." Shiniki gave a small wave as he said this and the three turned heel on us and left. I picked up my torch which was still burning on the ground. "Come on, we need to keep going." I tell Shiniki, who nods, frowning at the 'Party Dissolved' message that has just appeared before him, he deletes it and looks up. "Yeah." He sighs.


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the next instalment if Player Killer Killer! I do not own SAO, other then that, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 6**

Two months have passed since the VRMMORPG known as Sword Art Online trapped thousands of people inside of itself, forcing the players to fight to beat the game and escape back to the real world. Two months and we are still trapped on the first floor out of a hundred.

Shiniki and I have made good progress in that time, we're both level twenty-eight now, I would've expected us to be even higher than we are now given how quickly we levelled up at the beginning, but ever since level ten the experience required to level up jumps up about five-thousand every level. Our play-styles have definitely begun to show now that we're well into the game. Shiniki has a lot of health and heavy armour, but he still hasn't come to the light and ditched maces, but he has had the sense to get a shield as well.

As for me, every item I have equipped is for speed, dexterity and agility, I know those words mean very much the same thing, but it needs to be emphasized. My health is lower than Shiniki's, and my armour is less protective. However, I have more stamina, I'm faster, my strikes are more accurate, having high health and defence is great, but you don't necessarily need it if you can avoid being hit altogether. I could talk about my new rapier for hours and its superiority to Shiniki's mace, but I'll cut it short and just say it's amazing.

The whole of the floor one map had been discovered, but still no-one had found the entrance to the boss room. I was bored. I know that our lives hang in the balance here, but it can't be a seat-of-the-pants adventure twenty-four-seven. "What are we even looking for?" I muse aloud.

"What was that, Rin?" Shiniki asks, we're wondering through the streets of the biggest and the best town on the floor without anything to do. "I was wondering about what we were supposed to be looking for to find the boss room." I elaborate and Shiniki ponders this for a moment.

"Hmm, I think we're looking for an extremely tall tower, one that goes from the ground all the way to the roof of this floor." He explains.

"Shiniki, how many people are there trapped in SAO?" I ask.

"Approximately ten thousand, why?" He responds.

"Well, if that's the case, and what you've said about the tower is true, then approximately nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine of those people are stupid." I tell him.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, because there's you're freaking tower." I say, pointing up to what appears to be a giant pylon holding up the sky. "Woah!" Shiniki exclaims.

"I'll bet your mace I'm right."

"That's not how betting works."

"Shut up, let's go."

"'Kay."

The giant pylon-tower was a lot further away then what we had first thought, but we made it there around midday. We were well out of town now, but we had found the entrance easily, there was a road which goes through a forest before widening and leading us to a set of purplish double doors with a torch burning on either side of it. How no-one had thought to investigate this place was beyond comprehension to me, its size just seemed like a dead giveaway of its importance.

We stood outside the doors, weapons drawn, each of us with a hand on one of the door's two handles. "Ready?" Shiniki asks and I nod in reply and we force the doors open and burst into a large circular room. "This is the players, we're here for your boss, send them out unarmed and with their hands up!" Shiniki announced, earning a pained expression from me. "Warn me next time." I mutter, hoping that no-one and/or nothing heard his outburst, but nothing happened, the room was empty except for the torches burning on the walls and a large set of stairs leading up that followed the curve of the room. "Worth it." Shiniki shrugged as the echo of his previous statement died away.

By a silent agreement we ascended up the stairs, keeping an eye out for traps. While on a quest earlier in the week, Shiniki had sprung a trap and ended up suspended in the air dangling by his feet, it had taken me five minutes to free him because I had been too busy laughing. The stairs followed a giant spiral, we hadn't encountered anything yet, but I had a feeling that told me it wouldn't be long. "Rin, look up there!" Shiniki whispered as loud as he dared, not wishing to notify whatever may or may not be above us of our presence. I look to where he is motioning with his mace and saw the next floor of the tower.

We got close enough to poke our heads over the edge of where the stairs met the floor and saw some weird reddish whitish humanoid enemies that identified as Kobold Sentinels with weapons that looked like two white meatballs on either end of a large stick. "We'll try and sneak up on them and see how many we can kill before they all react." I whisper in Shiniki's ear.

"I think you'd better do that, I'm too heavy; I'd wake them all up." He whispered back in the same manner and I nodded in agreement. Slowly rising to a crouch and creeping up onto the floor, I could see where the stairs continued on the other side of the room and I could count thirty Kobold Sentinels lying on the ground between the stairs and I. They may have been lying down, but they weren't dead, Shiniki and I had been in a similar dungeon at about the one month mark, once you got halfway through the room, boom, everyone's awake and you're overwhelmed and surrounded instantly.

I stood over a Sentinel, looking for some sort of indicator of a weak spot, like a glowing red gem or something. I can't see anything that clearly shouts 'hit here for big ouchie,' so I decide to try an instant kill on it. If a player gets their head cut off, regardless of how much health remains in their health bar, the player will die as humans cannot function without their brain, so I'm assuming that the Kobold anatomy is similar to that of a human's. I slice down on the Kobold's neck, cutting straight through it. The monster cried out and stood up; very much alive. "Is death equality too much to ask for?" I mutter in an irritated manner as every other Kobold Sentinel in the room wakes up, growling and armed. "Shut up, you lot." I snap in their general direction, but my words fell on deaf ears. I don't think anyone in this game has ears anyway; it's all just awareness statistics.

I jumped back as the Sentinel I had attacked swung its... I have no idea what to call their weapons, I mean, it looks a lot like a... oh no... oh god, no... Kayaba Akihiko, why?! Why would you do this?! Their weapons are freaking double sided maces. I run back to the stairs where Shiniki has moved to stand on the same level as me and I turn to face the Kobold Sentinels. Five of them storm at us at once, Shiniki blocks an attack on his shield and smashed the offending Kobold in the side, I bring my rapier back and the blade goes green, activating the sword skill: blade rain, which is a salvo of five quick strikes to a single opponent. I unleash it on the Kobold I had attacked a few seconds ago and it shatters to pieces. Shiniki finishes off his opponent with an overhead blow using a skill that set his mace on fire as he swung.

Our victory was short-lived as two more Sentinels ran to fill the spots vacated by their dead comrades. Three of the five facing us attacked me at once and I hastily used another sword skill by holding my rapier to the side with the blade facing down, mirage blade. The metal glows blue and I swing my weapon in a semicircle around me with the point of my blade perpendicular to the ground, a blue afterimage following its wake, as the Kobolds' attacks hit the afterimage, they stopped as if I had blocked them all separately. I cut at all three of them with a broad stroke, but it wasn't very effective, rapiers are made for fighting singular opponents after all, not hordes of enemies. Shiniki kills another Sentinel before quickly blocking another attack.

"This can't go on, Rin, we'll be overwhelmed!" Shiniki yells, despite being two metres away from me.

"I know!" I called back. "Go back to the stairs; they can't come at us as much that way!" I don't think that Shiniki completely understood what I meant by that, but he did as I had told him, with me on his heels and every other Kobold on my own. We descended down the stairs a little. "Stop here, defend this spot!" I told him and realisation dawned on him; the Kobolds could only come at us three at a time on the stairs, however, it was now an uphill fight. It became harder and harder to block and dodge on the stairs and we took damage. "Crap, Rin!" He cried out.

"I know, mate, I'm thinking." I said as I killed a Sentinel, and then used mirage blade to give myself a moment of peace.

A small epiphany hits me and I have an idea. "Shiniki, it's a fair drop from here to the ground, isn't it?" I ask him. "I'm not jumping!" he snaps back.

"Who said we'd be the ones doing the jumping?" I ask, my voice hardening with concentration as I body-slammed a Kobold over the edge of the stairs and into empty space. "I see where you're coming from!" Shiniki grunts, blocking an attack, and then grabbing his attacker's weapon and flung it over the edge, with its owner still gripping it tightly. Some enemies died when they hit the ground, others survived, but were thrown down to red health. Despite the effectiveness of this strategy, we were still forced to give ground as our concentration was split between fighting and keeping out balance on these stairs.

"Ah crap. Rin, we're trapped." Shiniki tells me and I risk a brief glance behind and see all the surviving Sentinels we'd thrown to the ground coming at us from behind. "Cover me!" I yell, using mirage blade yet again, swinging my rapier in a full circle around me before opening my inventory, I have to be quick, as the protection of mirage blade only lasts three seconds. I go to the potions section and scroll to what I am looking for: the splash potion of fire. With one in hand, I pitch it at a Kobold in the middle of the stairs behind us and the fire that explodes from the delicate flask upon impact engulfs all the Sentinels to our rear. When the fire cleared, there were none left. "Brilliant!" Shiniki cries out triumphantly, but the battle isn't over yet, there's still half of the original number left. We give ground and I lob another fire potion at them, but it's nowhere near as effective as I would have liked it to be, but it meant we now didn't have to fight them as much to win. No, this wasn't about victory anymore; this was about survival now.

The flames cleared and I rushed forward, using blade rain on a Sentinel, killing it in an instant. Inspired, Shiniki ran ahead, mace on fire and killed another, there's about thirteen left now. "Push them over again, give us some space!" I tell Shiniki who responds by complying and I rush to assist him. We pushed six over the edge before we were forced to pay attention to the remainder, who were still on high health. I struck one between the eyes, then yanked on the pole of its weapon, forcing it further down the stairs than me, and then I booted it down the stairs with as much power as I could muster, sending it crashing down, taking small amounts of damage rapidly. Shiniki stepped around a Kobold and swung his mace into the back of its head, it died as it hit the ground.

There were five left on the steps now as the surviving ones on the ground floor hadn't tried to sneak back up on us yet. "Damn, red!" Shiniki exclaimed, making me remember my own mortality in the same instant, I was down in the lowest end of the yellow section. "Get back, Shiniki!" I cry out desperately, not wishing to lose my best and only friend. "Don't worry, I have potions." He reassured me, moving to my rear to open his inventory. I rush forward and stab a Sentinel, while another tries to get around me to get to Shiniki. "Oh no you don't!" I take my rapier out and slam my shoulder into the offending Kobold, sending it over the edge of the stairs. I hear the sound of shattering glass and turn to see three Kobolds on fire, I look back to Shiniki in bewilderment, his health is green again, thankfully, and he shrugs. "I had a fire potion as well."

I duck as the non-burning Kobold Sentinel I stabbed before rushes me, I stab it in the upper-thigh and push it over the edge, good thing I ducked, otherwise I'd be joining it on its trip. We clean up the last three without too much of a hassle and head down the stairs to fight the remaining Sentinels on the ground floor. I drink a health potion along the way, then letting my auto-regenerative attribute fill up the rest of my health bar. I also get out another fire potion and throw it over the edge of the stairs without really aiming for anything. There were only two Sentinels left when we got to the ground, and they only required one hit each to kill. We headed back up the stairs, reading through our rewards for that fight as we did so. It was mostly gold, but there were a few potions, but not enough experience to level up.

We ascended to the floor where all the Kobold Sentinels had been sleeping and continued up the stairs on the other side of the room. We kept going up until we couldn't go up any further, as we were met with a large set of wooden double doors. "Hmm, pretty suss, I reckon." I muse and Shiniki nods and I push one of the doors open slightly. "Heyo! Any bosses in here?" I call out, abandoning all stealth as it is impossible to sneak up on a boss, and stepping into the dark room, holding the door so it doesn't close and lock me in there horror movie style. The room lights up to reveal a long, wide hall with pylons holding up the roof lining both of the longer walls, A big red monster at the other end of the room stands up and roars at me, two health bars appear and the name: Illfang the Kobold Lord. "Cool, just checking." I say, stepping out of the room and closing the door. "We're leaving." I tell Shiniki.

"Okay, at least we cleared the way to the boss; let's go tell everyone else about it."

"Good idea, we'd better not go in there without cannon fodder, ahem, sacrifices, ahem, pawns, ahem, help. But first we go to the market so I can buy some new pants; these ones are too wet."

"You pissed yourself, didn't you?"

"Shut up!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the next chapter of Player Killer Killer! I apologise that this chapter is shorter than the rest, but hopefully it s to the same standard. Anyway, I do not own SAO, only my OC's other than that, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 7**

Shiniki made the news of our discovery public by talking to a man named Diavel, who is apparently well-known and respected as a leader; I've never heard of him. "Good job!" Diavel tells Shiniki. "You're so brave to have gone up there all by yourself!" Shiniki laughs and blushes a little.

"Aw, thanks... hey wait, all by myself? What the...?" Shiniki spins a full one-eighty, looking around wildly. "Rin!" he called, the annoyance in his voice rising as he spoke. He sighed and just as I thought he was about to give up, he reached into a nearby bush and pulled me out of it by the hair. "Ow!" I complain.

"This is Rin; he did most of the work." Shiniki informs Diavel, who appears to be a little put off for some reason. "Nice to... meet you?" He says awkwardly. "Do you always hide in bushes?" He holds out a hand to shake, but I'm petrified, damn it Shiniki! Shiniki grabs one of my arms and lifts it up to shake Diavel's. "I'm sorry about him; his social ineptness isn't normally this bad."

"I'll take your word for that." Diavel replies, regaining his composure. Shiniki, if I could move right now, I would strangle you! But... maybe not in front of all these people... or maybe at all, I don't really want any weird looks. I think I'll just find an inn and curl up in bed instead.

We slept at an inn that night, it was one of the many in this town, I believe I've stated that this is the biggest town on the floor, so it's made to host a larger amount of people. The next morning a message box appeared informing us that a meeting was going to be held at the auditorium regarding confronting and defeating the boss. We made our way to the auditorium and... Well, when I say we found our seats, I really mean we sat down on some pale-yellowish steps that were arranged in a semicircle around a stage. Diavel was on the stage, pacing left and right, he kept looking from down at the stage, to the stands, and to his inventory, where I'm assuming he was looking at the time. More people piled into the auditorium, no-one seemed willing to sit too close to anyone else and seemed to spread out to avoid sitting next to others. This was completely fine by me, I didn't really want to sit next to them either, and I'm only here because Shiniki's here. My thoughts were interrupted abruptly by Shiniki's elbow ramming itself into my side. "Stop thinking that." He snaps.

"Thinking what?!" I ask in an annoyed tone.

"You're thinking antisocial thoughts." He states.

"Those are my normal thoughts!"

"Exactly." Shiniki tells me, shutting me up for a good minute before I have anything to say again, and when I did say something, it wasn't really significant. "What?"

When it was time for the meeting to start, Diavel thanked everyone for coming and started talking. It was a bit boring, so I'll give you a quick overview. Diavel was talking strategy until some prick interrupted him and started whinging about beta testers, which caused some unrest among the crowd, until a big muscle-bound man shut him up. Having cleared that up, the matters of the boss' weaponry was discussed and other minor details which I forget. The only part that stood out to me was when Diavel told us to get into groups of four. I didn't like that part. Teaming up would mean... I shuddered at the thought... social interaction. "Spend today preparing; contact friends and gather more to our cause." Diavel called out as the meeting came to an end. "We leave tomorrow morning, meet out the front of town at nine tomorrow."

Shiniki smiles evilly, and I know I'm not going to like whatever comes out of his mouth next. "C'mon Rin, find us some others to team up with." He jeers, poking me as he does so.

"You bastard." I curse, but he just snickers and pokes me even more.

"No escape this time." Shiniki taunts, but then it seems that he has calmed down; he adopts a more considerate tone. "Look, see that boy over there? He's all by himself, go and ask him, it's only one-on-one, you should be fine." He tells me, pointing to a boy on the other side of the auditorium as he does so. "Gah, alright, just this once." I concede, looking at the boy critically, he seems somewhat familiar. He's wearing a blue shirt, black pants, a light, silver chest plate and has a sword over his shoulder. I slowly approach him until I can read the name tag above his head: Kirito. Yes, I remember him; he was the one that ran away screaming.

I kept approaching until I was standing one step lower than him. "E-e-e-excuse me... Kirito." I stutter, but he doesn't react, I took a deep breath and try again. "Pardon me, Kirito." I say as clearly as I can, making to enunciate each word completely and correctly, but still he does not respond, heck, he hasn't so much as looked my way yet. Finally, he moves, but not because of me, he starts looking around randomly. "Crap, there's no-one around." He mutters, craning his neck to look for other people.

"Um, hello? I'm right here. W-want to join my friend and I?" I asked him, but despite being little over a metre away, he still doesn't show any signs that he has heard me, is this guy's awareness stat negative seven or something, I figure that he must be deaf, but surely he's seen me with all of his looking around. Stats can't even go into the negatives. Suddenly he starts scooting away from me and towards someone completely shrouded in a red cloak, making none of their other features discernable. "So, you're alone too?" He asks them. I don't even stick around to listen to the rest of the conversation; I'm already on my way back to Shiniki. "You were watching that, right?" I ask my friend.

"Yeah, I was, he didn't even look at you; and I could hear you from back here." He replies, bewildered.

"Hey! Shiniki... and Rin!" Someone calls out and I turn to see the speaker and find Diavel standing with the big muscle-bound man from before, whose name I could now read to be Egil, he has a giant double-headed battleaxe slung over his shoulder. "You two come here!" Diavel continues. "Join up with us." Shiniki and I jumped down to the stage where the other two were standing and accepted their party requests. "I look forward to fighting beside you two." Egil tells us in his deep, manly voice.  
"Likewise." Shiniki replies cheerfully, shaking his hand while I simply nodded.

The remainder of the day was spent buying supplies like potions and... Well, just potions; I didn't need anything else. After that, Shiniki and I went back to the inn to organise our inventories and rest. I scrolled through my list of sword skills; there are only a limited amount of skills that can be equipped at a time, as there was only a certain amount of trigger positions available for certain skills. I kept mirage blade and blade rain, then added a skill called longsword to my list, it doubles the reach of my rapier for ten seconds, and to activate it I have to point my blade to the sky. I kept straight strike, which had been one of my first skills and is pretty self-explanatory; it is simply a more powerful thrust attack and was the one I had used to defeat Morna two months ago. I added flame point, which set the tip of my rapier on fire for seven seconds and to activate it I had to hold the hilt of my rapier in front of my face.

I sighed and fell back onto my bed and open my inventory to remove all my armour and weaponry, and then crawl beneath the blankets of the bed. Tomorrow I was to participate in the effort to defeat the first boss. This was to be done with more people than I've ever worked with before (which may or may not mean more than five), I was going to need my energy not to run and hide in a corner or a conveniently placed bush.

The next morning we met up with Diavel and Egil. Our group is the one to lead the march to the boss room. Okay, maybe march isn't the right word, it's more along the lines of a leisurely stroll. We walked through the forest on the way to face the familiar purple wooden doors. We entered the tower and ascended up the stairs, man I sure hope that all those Kobold Sentinels did not respawn, otherwise the earlier efforts of Shiniki and I would have meant nothing. Thankfully, they did not respawn and we continued our ascent to the top of the tower until we came to face a larger set of the doors at the entrance of the tower. Diavel turned around and gave everyone a speech, re-familiarising us all with the strategy, telling us to look out for each other, and that there may be a day when the strength of men fails, and today was not that day, until finally: "For freedom!" He finished with volume, receiving a roar of approval in return and one guy shouting: "America!" With the support of everyone behind him, Diavel turned around and pushed open the doors.

The doors crashed open and we all ran in, the room lit up and Illfang the Kobold Lord appeared, he/she was a large red ball with arms, legs and a canine-like head... hmm, what else is there... oh right, a massive metal implement for killing players, but that was about it, no other outstanding features. Enemies appeared between the boss and us, they looked like Kobold Sentinels, but bigger, their name tags identified them as Fell Kobold Sentinels, I'll just assume that falling over makes one more powerful. Illfang roared angrily and loudly and all the Kobolds charged at us. "So Rin," Egil asks "any tips for killing these guys?" I looked up at the big man; I'm not really sure how to tell him that there is not strategy.

"Uh, hit them and don't get hit...?" Egil looked like he was about to give me a sarcastic thanks, but Diavel interrupted him, yelling "CHARGE!"

With a great roar, we charged, and the army of players and Kobold met in the middle and metal met metal.


	8. Chapter 8

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the eighth chapter of Player Killer Killer! While I'm not at all sorry about the cliffhanger I left the last chapter on, I do have to apologise for the wait between chapters. Anyway, I do not own SAO, I only own my OC's, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 8**

Noise seemed to explode from both ends of the room as Illfang the Kobold Lord roared at us, while Diavel shouted orders and players yelled back at Illfang. Diavel, Egil, Shiniki and I are at the vanguard and are the first to have contact with the oncoming Fell Kobold Sentinels. I found that there wasn't much of a difference between these ones and the Sentinels Shiniki and I had fought a while ago, these ones were bigger and probably stronger (I wasn't about to let one hit me so that I could find out). Our collective effort had us dispose of them promptly and the gap between us and Illfang was closed quickly.

Illfang's speed and ability to move betrayed his size. It's a general rule that the bigger something is, the slower it is. It attacks with large, broad strikes that required a high level of agility to dodge, or just goo limbo skills, depending on the attack. It was I who managed to get the first strike on the boss of the first floor; I moved in close to its body and unleashed blade rain on the white diamond that dominated most of its stomach. The other players were close behind me, landing hits of their own and yelling in defiance. Illfang attacked again, sending many players flying, but I was quick enough to duck underneath it, however, the attack was lower to the ground than I had initially anticipated and I was forced to fall flat on my back in order to avoid taking damage.

We'd been fighting for five minutes now and we'd taken down one of Illfang's two health bars, it got angrier and roared again, leaping away from the fight as it did so. More Fell Kobold Sentinels appeared and rushed towards us; one of them appeared directly behind me and hit me in the back. Crap! These guys are a little _too_ strong for my liking I decided as I lost a whole quarter of my health bar. Shiniki comes to my rescue, killing the Kobold before it could do any more damage. Unable to speak, I nod my thanks and use mirage blade, swinging my rapier in a circle around my body in order to give myself a couple of minutes to look around at the battle around me.

Many people were in my situation, looking at their health bars worryingly. Remembering to monitor it is one of the hardest parts of this death game, because as long as there is at least one hit point in it, you can move, so there is no physical impairment inflicted by it to let us know when we're close to dying. But where many were desperate, others were excited and untouched. The effect of mirage blade ended, my rapier's afterimage fading into nothing and I was thrust back into the heat of battle.

I advanced, activating flame point as I did so and poked at another Fell Sentinel, using the length of my rapier to keep the distance between the two of us so that I could attack while staying out of the range of the Kobold's double-mace-thing weapons. As the tip of my blade penetrated the Kobold's virtual flesh, its whole being caught fire and it screamed out in pain, but the sound of its demise was sweet to my ears, and as the effect of flame point died away, I stepped in close and finished it off with straight strike. I have to be careful in large fights such as these when I use sword skills, as most of the ones available to rapiers leave the user wide open as rapiers are made to attack a single opponent, not for crowd control use.

I think I've worked out a strategy for taking down these Sentinels; their weapons only allow for short to medium attacks, so with a weapon that is longer, such as a lance, spear, longsword and some rapiers, the user will be able to attack without having to worry about being hit in return. Unfortunately there are no bows or crossbows et cetera in SAO, so there is no way to completely avoid harm. However, for most other weapons, you have to get closer to deal any damage, so you have to keep moving in a circle around the Sentinels, as I've found that they can't turn quickly when standing still.

The wave of Fell Kobold Sentinels was destroyed, no-one had died, but many were severely injured and moved to the back of the room as fast as they could. The players in better health conditions swarmed to Illfang and the focus became to beat the living (virtual, whatever) crap out of him, this succeeded to a point. We gradually grated away at his health, forcing it lower and lower with every hit until his second health bar (greedy bastard, one wasn't enough, was it?) went from green to yellow and he roared at us again, leaping back even further then he had previously; he was just about at the back wall of the room anyway. A cry of alarm arose from the front of the room, where we had entered, and I spun around to see more Fell Kobold Sentinels spawning around the entrance where all of our heavily injured players had retreated to. "That's just not nice." I heard Shiniki say.

"Let's go!" Egil roared, leading the charge to save the others. I ran too, and quickly overtook Egil, as did many others, and was the first to get to where the centre of action had been shifted.

The back may have been where our wounded players were, but not all of them were nearly dead, there were pockets of resistance among the haphazard battlefield, where there was no organisation of troops anywhere. I sprinted at two Fell Sentinels and used blade rain on one, realising my mistake too late when the other one hit me, putting me down to half health. Diavel and Shiniki arrive shortly and take over, finishing off the two with ease. "Are you okay, Rin?" Shiniki asks; concerned that this is the second time he has had saved me in fifteen minutes. "I feel half dead." I reply. Shiniki looks at me, then to my health bar, and then back to me. "If I hear one more pun like that, I make you completely dead." He threatens. "But then you'd only be half killing me." I respond.

"How can you joke around at a time like this?"

"I spend a lot of time alone; I have trouble reading some situations... Is this a bad time?" I ask, genuinely unsure. "Just... Just fight, will you? And don't die, while you're at it." Shiniki says, his voice sounds a bit pained in an ' _is this guy for real?'_ kind of way.

The Fell Kobold Sentinels in our area were taken care of with extreme care, but with care comes time; I'm baffled, yet not ungrateful, that Illfang hasn't come down this end personally and put most of us out of our miseries. Even though most of us were now far from the centre of the danger, our situation was dire; we had minimal players attacking Illfang and all formation was lost, we were set out like butter on hot toast; spread out and melting... which is a tasty way of saying we were up the creek. "We need to help out at the vanguard." I tell Shiniki, who nods.

"Good idea, call everyone to attack." He tells me.

"You do it." I snap in return, anticipating this reply.

"Oh my god, you useless introvert." Shiniki sighs, not even bothering to attempt to hide the utter disappointment in his voice. "You're gonna do this now?" He asks, seemingly physically pained.

"You're gonna do _this_ now?!" I reply with the same phrase, only changing the tone of which it was said to insistent. We have a silent stare-off with the cries of our desperate allies in the background. "Everyone! Forward!" Someone yelled, their voice was deep, loud and commanding; there was no arguing to be done with them. The two of us turned to see this commander and saw Egil, battleaxe raised over his head and pointed in the general direction if Illfang. A great roar rose up from the remainder of our troops, and while I didn't cry out with them, I did charge alongside them.

My feet thudded on the ground as I ran towards the main fight in the room, but in a group, as a collective, our footsteps thundered across the floor. When I raised my rapier in preparation to strike, everyone else raised their own weapons with me. We were no longer many individuals, in this moment we were one unit fighting with the intent of surviving and escaping this game. Is this the power of a group? The power of many fighting for one cause? It is not a power that I am accustomed to, and while I am inspired by it, I cannot help but fell slightly intimidated by it. Something about it makes me feel smaller. I manage to put aside this feeling and keep running until we catch up with the forward group and fan out in a circle around Illfang and we each lay our individual attacks on it.

Illfang lashed out at us, many were able to foresee the movements and move to dodge, while those who can't try to block or remain standing throughout the impact, praying that their health bars could accommodate the giant subtractions made to them. An attack came my way, I activated mirage blade once again and swung the blade around so that the afterimage would intercept and stop the attack, but the attack was not stopped, the Illfang's blade collided with my sword skill and the see-through blue shattered upon impact, I was not hurt, but I hadn't achieved my goal. "Crap!" Mirage blade is an incredible strong blocking skill that's supposed to block everything that hits it. How strong _is_ Illfang? Is it because it is a boss, or is it that it simply possesses incredible attack power? Either way, this is not at all favourable.

Finally, Illfang's last health bar dropped to red. It roared and spun around in a circle, blade outstretched as it did so. No-one was hurt from what I could see, but the wind generated by it blew us all back away from our target. It was Diavel who spoke up next. "Everyone! Get back!" He called, this turned out to be a very easy command to follow as everyone had just been thrown twenty-five metres away from wherever they had previously been. Diavel rushed forward, sword raised, the whole weapon glowed white and gave off light of a similar hue. Illfang discarded its weapon and pulled another off of its back, this one was longer, its name I am not familiar with, but with just one glance, it is obvious that this weapon can deal some serious damage.

Illfang roared again and leapt into the air. Illfang had already demonstrated that it could jump insanely high, but now it jumped to the height of one of the pillars holding the roof up, from there it leapt to another, then another, then another! Its progress was impossible for my eyes to follow, but while I didn't know where Illfang was, I knew what it was going to do. There was an explosion of dust around Diavel and the man was sent flying through the air until he gracelessly arced back down to the ground and landed with a cringe-worthy thud. Cries of alarm echoed around the room, filling it with disarray and confusion. I saw Kirito run over to Diavel and kneel down beside him. "Everyone! This is the final push! Finish it off!" Egil roared, jolting everyone back to reality. There was no collective cry this time, but there was action and we proceeded with our assault.

Players were forced to retreat from the fight as their health bars dipped down into the red section and our attack force diminished before my eyes. Illfang roared with rage, (or was it triumph?) and jumped away from us all once again. I sighed. "I'm getting really sick and tired of this bullsh- CRAP!" I started mumbling, but I was interrupted and I screamed the last word. A Fell Kobold Sentinel formed out of white, blue and green polygons directly next to me and I did an Illfang; which is to say, I jumped away really fast, except with a little more screaming and urination. I used blade rain to knock back the offending Kobold before finishing it off with straight strike. I let out a pent-up breath. "There are one hundred of these places?!" I gasp, as suddenly the reward of freedom seems light-years away.

I saw Shiniki fighting off an attacker and I ran over to help him, activating the skill longsword as I did so, and with the added reach of my blade, I was able to save him in time; he was in the red now. "Thanks Rin!" He tells me, dropping to his knees in relief. "Three of them spawned around me and I... well, I killed two of them, and well... thank you." I blushed, Shiniki was my best friend and he'd thanked me many times before as I had thanked him, but there was something just so much more genuine about his gratefulness now then there ever had been before. Getting embarrassed while being thanked was something that happened to me a lot, especially if I wasn't familiar with that person, really I was only comfortable being thanked by Shiniki or Dad. "N-no problem." I stutter in return.

The Sentinels were finally taken care of – it's an absolute miracle that no-one has died from this constant barrage of attacks – and once again it was just us and Illfang the Kobold Lord. Many players grouped together, forming a wall, with people bearing shields at the front, but none of them looked like they wanted to be there. Shiniki and I stay separate, and we are soon joined by Egil. "It's going to be difficult to get everyone else to fight now, especially with the state we're all in." He told us. This man seems to be more of a leader than Diavel, who was the one to get us all into this mess. Speaking of the man who was bitch-slapped twenty-five metres into the air, where is he? I look up to my health bar and squint at the smaller health bars below mine, representing the others in my party, I see Shiniki in red, Egil in green – the lucky bastard – but no Diavel. I saw no message saying he'd left the party, so where the hell did he get to? I start looking around, half curious and half worried.

I couldn't see Diavel, but I did see Kirito, who was supposed to have been taking care of Diavel, but there was no Diavel with him, in his place there was a player completely shrouded in a red cloak, the one he had approached the previous day when I had tried to talk to him (I still haven't forgiven him for that...). They stand in front of everyone else, facing away from us and towards Illfang, and they share a short exchange before they both sprint at Illfang.

They take turns slicing at the boss of the first floor, each strike pushing it back further and further. Now while I support them and want the two to kill Illfang, I also want to know why the boss has suddenly become five kilograms in weight; since when did it get slapped around like that?! I'm too far away to get a good look at each individual strike that they make, but I can certainly tell when they go to make an attack; do you reckon that they could've screamed any louder? They must think they're in some kind of anime, because that is just too loud and it's the only reason I can think of. I heard Kirito let out a cry louder than any that had preceded it, and I knew that it was the final attack and victory was upon us. Illfang let out one final roar as it swelled up like a balloon, one long, deep, red cut going diagonal across its body from hip to shoulder and exploded into blue and green particles.

The celebration was short-lived as many began to remember their wounds and desperately gulp down the most potent health potions they possessed. I later found out the Diavel had died from Illfang's attack on him, but on the upside, it turned out that he was the only casualty. I scrolled through the list to rewards that came with the 'Congratulations!' message box. Mostly potions and a couple of rings, what stands out the most is the rapier, it looks the same as my current one, but with higher statistics, which is always nice. I think just about everyone levelled up as well.

Despite all of the cheeriness and relief of the situation, someone still found a way to ruin it by being a prick. They called out Kirito and accused him of having some sort of inside information or something. Kirito revealed that he had been a beta tester for SAO, this didn't strike the same chord in me as it did everyone else in the room (I don't know, must be a social-person thing). The mood shifted dramatically and I felt my blood run cold. What had just happened? Something now seemed very wrong among the group, I could smell another conflict, and I didn't plan to be present for this one, nothing good could come of two or more players fighting each other, we all shared the same desire for freedom for the sake of everything! Was it really that hard to accept that someone knew more than you and move on, maybe working with them in the process? This is one reason why I spend all my time away from people; they're idiots.

I crept up behind Shiniki, not wanting my movements to be seen as an angry mob could be like an enraged animal; one move and they pounce on you. "Let's leave." I whisper in his ear, I can tell he's uncomfortable here as it is. "Good idea." He responds in the same manner and we dissolve our party with Egil without his noticing (He's getting into the argument as well, except he's supporting Kirito, as opposed to Mr. Prick who started this unrest) and we edge our way around the side of the room and finally climb up the stairs that lead to the large grey doorway to the second floor. I slowly pull one of the double doors open (there's a lot of those doorways in this tower, I've noticed), praying desperately that it doesn't creak and we slip though just as Mr. Prick – that's his name now and there's nothing that can be done to change that – insulted Kirito as a 'beater.' How vulgar.

Shiniki and I closed the door behind us and re-established the party between the two of us and exited the dungeon. "C'mon man, the journey's just starting." Shiniki says, patting me on the back.

"Yeah." I agree, not entirely psyched about it, but we were one step closer to getting out of this death game.


	9. Chapter 9

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the ninth chapter of Player Killer Killer! I'm glad that typing up this chapter didn't take to long. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 9**

It had been more than a year ago now that approximately ten thousand people across Japan were trapped inside of the death game known as Sword Art Online. The fight by the players to free the players was well underway, with floor sixty recently being beaten by the front-line guilds, which had been established shortly after the completion of floor one. Many guilds were formed; some attracted hundreds of players, while others were exclusively among a group of friends, others catered to the darker aspects of human nature...

My name is Rin, I am level seventy-six, I am one of the fastest players in the game; I'm yet to meet someone who can stand parallel to me in that aspect. The story I tell is not a happy one, nor a proud one. You may walk away from this hating me, but know that what I did was necessary for my mind and the survival of the other players in the game.

It was night-time, Shiniki and I slept in an inn on the sixtieth floor that night, and at an ungodly hour of the night, I had finally achieved a state of rest. Shiniki was my best friend in both the real world and this virtual one, his real name is Shino Ikimatsu and we had stuck together since the beginning of the official release of SAO, he slept in a bed across the room from me. We had spent our time adventuring and fighting monsters; exactly what we had joined this game to do. However, now that our real lives hung in the balance, all the fun we had signed up for was absent.

Suddenly, my eyes flit open, a caution symbol flashing before my eyes, which widen and I jump out of bed. There have been a number of incidents recently; people have been ambushed in their sleep. I hear cries of alarm and spin around on the spot. People have been ambushed in their sleep by other players. I stare, bewildered, at the scene before me, I hear screams of surprise. They are ambushed in their sleep by players who know full well of the risk of death in real life being affected by our lives in this game. The screams turn from surprise to anguish, I walk towards the source of the noise. The risk of dying in this game and real life is very real, yet there are some who would ignore this. I stop before the source of the noise and raise my hand to put a stop to it, but I am stopped by a red hexagon reading: Cannot interact with duelling players. There are some who would ignore this, and exploit it. Unable to help, I watch as Shiniki's health bar depletes from green to yellow, from yellow to red, from red to shattering into polygons and vanishing completely. It was dark that night, but it was my emotions that lit up the night as they exploded from me with a rage-filled cry.

As Shiniki's polygons made a shiny mess on his bed and disappeared, the dual ended and I could interact with the other player in the dual. I grabbed them by the wrist and jerked violently, pulling them off of their feet. I dragged them out the door, down the stairs to the inn's ground floor and out onto the street. I pulled them down the street, their grunts of discomfort falling on deaf ears, every time I felt a tug of resistance I yanked hard, throwing them off-balance again.

With the rise of the number of guilds being formed, there was a certain faction of them that dedicated their time to player killing, or PKing as it was more commonly known. One method of killing that allowed the player to get away with the murder being labelled a 'red player' by the system was to engage in a battle to the death with another; as the conditions were agreed to, the system sees no sin in the eventual death of one of the participants, so their player marker stays green. However, not everyone is stupid enough to agree to these death matches, especially if they know they are going to lose; duels are the only way to kill another without becoming a 'red player,' but these killers have found a way around this and taken away any consent involved in the dual. They engage in a duel with a sleeping player and move their hand to hit the 'accept' button and the player killer attacks their victim who unknowingly agreed to their own death. This is the cowardly attack that Shiniki fell victim to.

I dragged the 'green' killer down the shortest road out of town with my left hand while I used my right to access my inventory and equip all of my gear. A black tunic manifested around my torso, black pants over my legs and black combat boots over my feet. My green cape appeared around my collarbone and fluttered out behind me in the very light breeze. I equipped my bracers, they are hexagonal and are predominantly black, but have a green edging, I also equip my greaves, which appear over my shins; they are the same as the bracers, except they go on my legs rather than my arms and my rapier forms out of white polygons across my lower back with the handle sticking out just behind my right kidney, its intricate golden hilt sits over the grip, awaiting my hand to command it.

Shiniki's killer tries to pry my fingers open and force me to release their wrist, but I drag them over to the side of the street and, with all my strength, slam them into the wall of a house. Of course, as we are in a safe zone, they don't take any damage and the 'Immortal Object' message appears on the house, but it does jar them and put a stop to their escape attempt.

We cross the barrier of the town and enter the fields that surround it; no longer are we in a safe zone. I throw them down to the ground in front of me and draw my rapier. "Stand, scum." I sneer at the killer: a man that I guess to be in his thirties who was desperately scampering to their feet, gripping his dagger tightly. I open my inventory again, hit a few buttons and wait. A message box appears before the man, I can't read it from here, but I know what it says: _Rin has challenged you to a death match. Accept?_ "Hell no man, I ain't stupid." He says out loud and declines the request, I sigh; I guess I'll have to take responsibility after all.

The man turns to run, but I stop him by stabbing him through the left shoulder. "Are you prepared to die, murderer?" I ask calmly yet darkly as I withdraw my blade and the killer staggers away from me. My diamond-shaped player indicator, which hovers above my head on top of my name tag, turns from green to yellow, showing that I have harmed another player. I receive no answer, so I ask another question. "Tell me," I say, kicking the man down to the ground as I did so "what motivated you to kill my friend?" I only get pathetic whimpering noises in reply, so I poke the tip of my rapier into his left knee, he's not hurt; you can't feel pain in SAO, yet he still whines. "Speak! Answer me! Why? Boredom? Amusement? Did it look like fun? WELL?!" The piece of crap before me is crying now, its health now in the yellow. I stab him again, in the stomach this time and red polygons slowly float out of the wound. "And how many? How many others have fallen victim for you to revel in your sick pleasure?" I pull my rapier out, step closer and kick him in the side of the head, sending him sprawling onto the ground. "Is there something wrong with your voice?"

I circle around the grounded man like a bird of prey, or a wolf scoping out its soon-to-be food. "I've heard that a common belief among your kind is that Kayaba lied and that no-one really dies. Tell me, if you believe that, then why do you cry now? Won't you just be revived? Is reality too much for you to handle?"

"G-get away from me!" He yells, kicking me in the shins, dealing no damage whatsoever, and running away as fast as he can. "Pathetic." I mutter, catching up to him in a couple of steps and even less seconds, following him silently, constantly on his heels.

I put my face next to his and whisper in his ear: "What say we pick up the pace to a walk?" He screams and jumps away, his back to a tree now. I pin him to the tree; literally, I stick my rapier through his right shoulder and into the wood of the tree's trunk. "Those who are not prepared to accept their own death should not be the ones to kill others." I tell him as his health depletes further. "You have seconds to come to terms with your fate before it comes to terms with you."

"I'm not gonna die today!" He exclaims, forcing my blade from his body and escaping.

"How naive." I mutter, stepping right behind him and bringing both hands to my rapier's grip, holding it beside my body with the tip of the blade directed at my target, the blade glows an ominous green.

In SAO, there are numerous ways to instantly kill a player. Suffocation is one; depriving the player of the ability to breath for a set amount of time stops them from functioning and they lose health at a rapid rate. Decapitation is another; severing the head from the body stops all messages from the brain reaching the body and their health bar is eliminated instantly. There is a third, lesser known way. If a limb is cut off, the player loses a percentage of their health equivalent to that of the percentage of their body mass that the limb made up. If a player is split in half, naturally, fifty percent of their health will be subtracted, but what happens if the head is split in two? Which side of the brain is considered to be the 'surviving side?' The answer is simple, neither; the player is annihilated in an instant.

Split lunge. That is the name of the skill that I have just activated. It's a lunge, as its name suggests, that propels me forward fifteen metres in less than a second, but if an enemy is hit in the first three metres, I go straight through it without the lunge being broken or stopped. Shiniki's killer was split in half as I shot through them. Bright red polygons filled the air, shattering into even smaller polygons when they hit the ground before they blinked out of existence. The loud sound of a whip cracking filled the air as I executed the skill, my vision blurred slightly before it re-focused and the green glow faded from my blade. I turn around to face my victim for the last time, as their two halves fall away from each other without a sound, before the silence was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass as they hit the ground. There's something on my face. It shouldn't be there. It's splitting my face worse than I split the murderer. I slap myself across the cheek to wipe away the wolf's grin that had manifested itself.

I stagger over to a tree, grabbing one of its branches for support, I sheath my rapier. I just killed another human being. Can someone who kills another of their species even be considered one of that species? No, this isn't about the pride of humanity, it's about revenge. There seems to be two sides of myself fighting inside my head. He was a murderer, killing him saved many others from sharing Shiniki's fate. But is more murder the correct answer to these murderers? Yes, there is no excuse for murder, and there is a consequence to every action; an eye for an eye, brutal as it is, it sends the message.

I sound like a hypocrite, saying that there is no excuse for murder and then making an excuse. The sooner I come to terms with this hypocrisy the better; it'll become easier to deal with. No! I don't want to get used to it! No-one wants to get used to it! There is a difference between 'want' and 'duty.' Since when was it my duty to kill others? Fool! Your duty is not to kill, your duty is to protect! Protect those weaker than you; punish those who would prey on the weak! Those who victimise the weak are... useless.

Spasms wrack throughout my body, I've dropped to the ground and curled into a ball, I feel cold, I feel... strange. Shaking visibly, I try to get back to my feet, but I drop back down onto my hands and knees. I killed someone... an eye for an eye... do I need to die? Yes, you need to die, but die only once your job is done, otherwise you are abandoning the weak who unknowingly rely on you to keep them safe, you will be a disappointment, you will be... useless. I fall flat on the ground, arms and legs shaking at irregular intervals.

Of my human flaws, pride is definitely the worst. I can recognise that it is an issue, yet it is not something I can simply cast aside; it makes up a great deal of my mindset. I will not allow myself to become useless. Never shall someone look back and say that Rin Waters never played any role in anything. "I... I must stop." I struggle to enunciate. Shiniki was killed by a player killer, if those people are allowed to roam around, then more people will die; we may never see the real light of day again. They disregard our lives, hopes, dreams, loves, aspirations, feelings, everything that makes us ourselves; to them we are nothing but a game to be played. Why should they, who view others in such a way, be allowed to live? They only serve to bring everyone down, and that is no purpose at all... they really are... useless. Murderers are not be considered humans, they are not equals; they go out of their way to place themselves below everyone else, so they shall not be treated as such. They have taken an eye, it's time for another to be taken in response; it's time to exact revenge and tip the scales back to even rather than how skewed they've made them. Those who kill others must accept the consequences for their crime without a complaint; they should be ready for it.

Hold up! What happened to no excuses for murder? The side of me that hasn't spoken up for a while finally perks up again. Excuses are for those that cannot perform, I do not have excuses, I have reasons. My whole body seizes up and for a full minute, I cannot move, but once whatever that was loses its effect, my entire being, both physical and mental, shake spasmodically. "I-I shall become... become a... a player killer killer..." I manage to choke out despite my throat being clear and the passage of air unobstructed. Something resonates throughout me... is this laughter!? "Yes... I shall stop the murders. I will protect everyone. If there is no protection against ourselves, then I will be the shield between the weak and the useless... and the sword... I will stop... player killing."

Whatever it was that had been possessing me seems to leave my body, no sooner than its grip on me is relinquished, I notice something. Shiniki is dead. I curl into a ball, sobbing silently with tears running down my face, they bunch up at the base of my chin and drop to the ground beneath me, disappearing as they did so. "Shini- no... Shino... his name is Shino! Shino Ikimatsu! Do you hear?" I'm yelling now, rage and sadness burst out of me as I shout at the dark night sky before I break back down and sit dejectedly with my back against the hard, cold, unforgiving trunk of a tree. My sobs shake my whole body and I find myself unable to speak for a full minute.

"He was... he was... is... my best friend." I weep, clenching my fists. "My only friend."


	10. Chapter 10

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the tenth chapter of Player Killer Killer! This chapter took me a while to write is all I have to say. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 10**

It's been a week since Shino was murdered. During that week, I had to stay out of the sight of every other player in the game. I'm a 'red' player now; I've killed someone, there's a price on my head. On the night of the murder, I had returned to the inn where we had slept to look for... anything, really. Anything that would help me hunt down other red players or at least help me find some solace for the loss. I had used an ability called 'cat's eye,' which allows a player to see the footprints of other players in that area in the last hour, I had found three different sets of footprints. The first was my own, which was shown in a different colour, and the second was that of the murderer. The third, I've deduced, is an accomplice. It's not Shino's; he'd been in bed the whole time, so the murderer must have been accompanied by someone else, probably to make sure that everything went smoothly. I followed the accomplice's tracks to a spot where the place I had initially fought the murderer could clearly be seen. I followed them further, but it lead to a main road, frequented by players at all hours, so their green footprints became lost amongst the rest and I lost their trail.

I did not find the accomplice, but I was able to get some information. One, the murderer had not worked alone, two, that the accomplice had seen me killing their friend, and three, I may be, or still am, a target for murder. Point three is not entirely certain, I doubt that honour among murderers exists, but the desire for revenge is a very basic human feeling. I don't know if those two have powerful friends or guild-mates that might try to come after me.

In the week since Shino was killed in his bed, I lived in the woods where I had killed the murderer. I had to stay out of sight, I don't want other people to see me and try to catch me; I may end up killing them as well, and I refuse to kill without a reason. I had to sleep fitfully in the uncomfortable branches of a tree because the ground was too dangerous at night. Being woken up in the middle of the night to fight for my life was hard; I couldn't get enough sleep, so I was affected by de-buffs limiting my ability to move and fight. I had to ration three days worth of food over seven days, constantly in a state of hunger, only eating once I dropped to the point of starvation and lost health. This went on, a seemingly endless cycle of hunger, trying to stay awake and regret, until finally, finally I could be seen again, the red marker above my head changed back to green and I headed back to town.

As soon as I had entered town, I headed for the nearest inn, ate some food, and then went to bed and slept for two days straight, not caring about being killed as I was simply too tired. I awoke again and headed to the nearest pub and sat down at a table and ordered some more food. My facial expression did not change, but tears ran from my eyes; I had ordered for two people and now had no friend to share with. The world seemed to have lost all colour; everything was black and white, everyone spoke in a monotone, the only colour left remained inside my heart, where I desperately tried to hold onto the memories of Shino, the time we had spent together.

No. Shino would not want me to get depressed. He would make a joke, maybe even scold me. He'd poke fun at me and lift my spirits. I can't be depressed, sad yes, but not too sad, that would be letting him down, betraying his memory. I stand outside in the middle of the street, looking up at the sky, the sky I loathed to see. It was an imitation, a fake, it was not real. How many times had Shino and I sat together, alone, bored, and just staring at the sky without a care in the world? In that moment, I made a promise, a promise that I would see the real sky again. I will survive.

With my resolve strengthened and my cause the only thing on my mind, I headed to the centre of town. At the centre of every town there are several notice boards containing quests, wanted posters and lists of every guild there is, and their recruiting requirements, if any. On a note pad, I jot down the names of the guilds I feel are suspicious or that I know are. The guilds accepting everyone and anyone are instantly cleared of suspicion, as if they were player killers, they would not want the knowledge of their doings to become widespread. I write down 'Titan's Hand,' a relatively well-known, yet hard to pinpoint guild that attacks people to rob them, but are not afraid to kill on occasion. I also write down 'Laughing Coffin,' they are not an officially recognised guild by the system, but they have recently gone public about their activities recently by assassinating most members of a well-known guild (so well-known, in fact, that I cannot remember their name). I run a few more tests on the spot with the names, filtering the guilty from the innocent like separating iron from sand with a magnet. I need to be careful though, some of them could just be groups of friends getting together, but have a misleading guild name.

I sit down at a bench going over my list. I have the names of over fifty guilds here, and only two of them are confirmed player killers and I know next to nothing about any of these guilds. However, just because I am trying to take on the player killers alone does not mean I have to find them alone. There are a couple of guilds that are trying to monopolise SAO, or at least become the most prominent guild. There is one guild that has more players than any others, they are among the best and most effective of the front-line guilds, heck, they even have their own castle-town. The Knights of the Blood Oath (KOB for short) have their headquarters located in the fifty-fifth floor city of Grandzam, also called the steel city. Such a guild I would imagine to have an ocean of knowledge at their fingertips.

Teleporting can only be done between discovered towns or from other safe areas, this system was implemented to stop players simply teleporting out of sticky situations and was something that many people learned the hard way around the twentieth floor, where there were a great deal of casualties simply because of our ignorance and complacency. I teleported to Grandzam and started looking around for someone or something to provide me with the information I desired. I strolled around the steel city until I can to a large fortress surrounded by a great grey wall; this was Grandzam, the building that the whole city had been named after. The giant portcullis was up, allowing anyone to roam in, so I assumed that they were open for whatever business might come their way. As I passed through the gate, I noticed a significant increase in the amount of players wearing red and white armour, the two uniform colours of the KOB; it put me – in my black and green armour and cape – very out of place. It felt like I was being watched.

I'm getting curious and even suspicious looks from all directions now. I'm not normally so self-conscious, but even now I'm hiding as much of myself as I can; hands in pockets, shoulders high, head hung low and staying close to the walls. I wonder if there's a reception-type area somewhere that I can get some information. I know that I was hopeful in coming here, but now that I consider it, KOB is a very large front-line guild, they probably don't have time to be looking back, especially at player killers. I sigh dejectedly; I was a fool to come here.

I round a corner unthinkingly and walk into someone else, knocking heads with them. "Gah! Look where you're going!" We both berate each other at the same time, even seeing the other's face until we exchanged venomous glares. In all honesty, this person looks a whole lot like me, just dressed in red and white. "What are you even- no, _how_ did you get in here?" He asks hotly, probably hoping to come across as intimidating, but this is a tune that I can play too. "I walked through the gate." I sneer in reply.

"Then allow me to escort you to the door." He responds, his politeness sweeter than poison.

"Oh by all means, mate, but maybe after I've finished up here, eh?" I answer just as caustically.

"Oh, I see how it is. Tryna act tough in enemy territory are we?" He asks, getting angrier and stepping right up into my personal space and grabbing my tunic by the collar. My sense of reason goes out the window and I grab him in return in the same spot on his shirt. "Wanna take this outside, mate?" I ask aggressively. "I'm not your mate, _mate_ , and we're already outside." He replies heatedly.

"I'll call you whatever I want, _mate_ , and we're going to need a lot more room if I'm gonna mop the floor with your sorry arse." I threaten and the both of us let out low, animalistic growling noises.

"Ereni! You idiot! What have you gotten yourself into now?" Someone snaps and a hand shot past my eyes and hit my quickly-established rival, whom I assume to be Ereni, making him stagger. As amusing as this is, I back away, raising my arms as well to block any potential attack that might come my way. "... Rin?"

"That's me." I respond to the asker, my sense of reason climbing back through the window to kick my sense of reason between the legs, what would happen if they had been looking for me while I had been a red player?! I lower my arms slowly to look at the speaker, they seem familiar, but I can't remember when I last saw them. It's a girl with black hair, blue eyes and a one-handed longsword at her side and light red and white armour to allow for ease of movement. "Do I know you?" I ask; I'm almost certain we have, and this girl seems to be completely certain of it. "You don't remember me?" She says; a little deflated. "I guess that makes sense though, we only fought alongside each other for about half an hour." It's coming to me, this sounds very familiar, I'm sure it was in the early days of SAO's release, I look up at her name tag for confirmation. "Ah, Sineki! I remember now." I exclaim. I can recall the names of everyone I've met during my time in SAO, this may sound impressive, but I can also list those people on two hands, maybe less. "I knew you hadn't forgotten me! Hey, are you still travelling with Shiniki?" She asks; her enthusiasm restored. I was about to tell her that Shino is dead, but the bells of warning sound so loud in my head that I can't hear what is going on in the background. "Yeah, yes we still travel together, he's... he's off elsewhere at the moment." I reply, trying to stay relatively cheerful. Ereni looks pissed; I can feel his stare trying to dissect me.

"So, Rin, what brings you to Grandzam? Oh! Are you here to join up with us?" Sineki asks hopefully, but I have to shut her down. "No, sorry, I am not. I'm merely here to investigate something." I tell her and she deflates a little. "Do you happen to know where I could go to get information?" I ask and she perks up again. "Information? On what?" She asks enthusiastically.

"Uh, all sorts."

"Okay, this way, Rin!" She says, beckoning me with a hand. I've noticed something, she seems to take an unnatural amount of joy in saying my name... a somewhat disturbing amount of joy at that, but I follow her nevertheless. Ereni follows us as well, I swear, if this guy's eyes emitted heat, I'd have sunburn on the back of my neck right now. Thinking back to Sineki, I think that she's being manipulated a little _too_ easily; she's known me for less than forty-five minutes. Clearly, Ereni thinks the same, his face a display of jealousy and anger and he's grumbling something undiscernible under his breath.

Sineki leads me inside of the keep, I step a little closer to her; maybe if everyone knows that I'm with her, they might stop staring so much and not get so suspicious and think that I'm a threat to their organisation. Ah, who am I kidding? I'm making it sound as if they're a part of the mafia or something illegal, when, in fact, they are the main force trying to get us out of this death game. "Manatu, I have someone who wishes to speak with you." Sineki says to someone, snapping me out of my stupor to find that I am standing before a red and white clad man sitting behind a long, curved wooden desk; I think it's safe to assume that he is Manatu. "And what does this someone want to talk about?" Came the reply. "He said he wants information." Sineki informs him, at the moment, I'm not sure of what to think of Manatu. "Information on what?" He asks, leaning forward in order to get a good look at me, I meet his gaze unwaveringly. I wet my lips, thinking of how to ask him about player killers casually and without evoking suspicion, instead, I turn to Sineki. "Um, Sineki? Could you please, uh, step away for the moment?" I ask the girl, who is hanging onto my every word, not really liking what she hears. "You see, this matter is very personal, so I'd appreciate it if it was known to as few people as possible." She looked like she was about to protest, but she bows her head a little and drags Ereni away with her. Good, I can't stand him, and I've known him for less than ten minutes.

Manatu raises an eyebrow as I lean in close and say to him in a low tone. "I want to know what you know about the locations of player killers." I've decided that there is a time for subtlety, and that that time is not now. "Why would you desire to know about where they are?" He asks. I can practically smell the suspicion emanating from his very being. "That's personal, but it's no cause for suspicion, I assure you." I reply, depending on your mindset, what I've said can be seen as both a truth and a lie at the same time. "Huh. You're an outsider, I've never heard of you, and I know most people, and you come in here asking for very suspicious information. It'll cost you." He tells me somewhat triumphantly, but I was prepared for something like this. "Look, mate, you tell me this for free, and you benefit in the long run." I say. I'm not entirely sure that adding 'mate' in there changed anything, but hey, I'm Australian, I can't help it. "I'm not telling you anything until I have both your reason and money." Manatu resists, then adding somewhat contemptuously: "Mate." I sigh internally, then lean forward to emphasise my next point.

"Look, mate, the player killers, PKers, if you will, whatever you call them, there are guilds of them out there. Guilds mean they're organised, prepared, they have a plan, a goal." I tell him. "Tell me, what do you think the goals of a group of murderers are? Do you think they plan to send flowers and chocolates to every player in the game? No, they do not. Your guild is looking forward, but who is looking back?" I feel like a freaking entrepreneur (but wait, there's more!). "The killers aren't monsters, they're people (by the loosest possible classification). My point is; how do you know when there's one behind you? How do you know that you aren't being hunted? How do you know that there isn't one among your ranks right this moment, killing your guild-mates?" I explain, Manatu shifts in his chair thoughtfully.

"You raise a good point. I take it you plan to investigate these player killers?" He asks, but I think he already knows the answer. "Alright, I'll say this: yes, I'm going to investigate them. Consider it free protection for your guild's back and that of all other players." Manatu knowing that I intend to investigate does not bother me, just as long as he doesn't find out about the killing part, I'm golden. I had planned on telling him this much anyway, but if I make it sound as if he's managed to pry this information from me, it makes it seem as though I have less to hide. Manatu caves in. "Alright, here, I'll write down where it is rumoured that PK guilds hide, and guilds that are suspected of being PKers. Also, some of Titan's Hand members were recently imprisoned, you may want to check it out on floor one here." He adds writing down another dot point.

I thank Manatu, tossing him a coin for his service. As I leave he tells me to get Sineki to see him. I meet back up with Sineki and Ereni for about twenty seconds before they go to see Manatu and I lead myself out of Grandzam's large entrance. A grin spreads across my face as I walk down the main street of the town; I have a lead, many leads, in fact, now all that's left to do is to hunt down my targets.


	11. Chapter 11

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the next instalment of Player Killer Killer! I'm sorry for the wait, I kept getting side-tracked by a myriad of things, I shall endeavour to update faster, but unfortunately I cannot promise anything. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 11**

From Grandzam, on floor fifty-five, I teleported all the way down to floor one, specifically to a place called the Black Iron Palace, which lay in the centre of the town of beginnings. My business there is in the prison area of the palace, where I have a lead telling me that captured members of the player killing guild 'Titan's Hand' are being kept. There aren't many players around, but that makes sense, this is the first floor, the clearance of this place was old news more than ten months ago. I pay a small fee to get into the prison and take note of a list of prisoners, which features their names, the remainder of their sentences and the guild which they are in, if any. It doesn't take me long to find the guild name Titan's Hand, and look for the cell number associated with it.

I stroll through the prison until I find the cell number I'm looking for, on the way there I cannot help but smirk as everyone around me throws me dirty glares filled with jealousy as I walk past their cells freely. I find one of the Titan's Hand members and get his attention. "Excuse me sir, but can you please direct me to the leader of your guild?" I ask as politely as I can and without adding a derogatory term like 'scum' to the end of my sentences. "Who are you supposed to be? Piss off!" They snap and I fix them with an unimpressed glare. "Do you want to get out of here or not?" I ask and upon these words gracing his ears, his attitude changes entirely. "Oh, yes, right, um, she's two cells to my left, your right." He tells me. "Thank you." I say and walk off. That man thinks he's getting out of here, but really I just changed the topic entirely, I wasn't offering him anything.

I walk to where I was directed and tap lightly on the bars of the cell to get its occupant's attention. "Hello, I was hoping you would co-operate with me and give me some information." I say as the leader of Titan's Hand steps forward, her name tag identifying her as: Rosalia, who laughs hollowly as my request. "Right, well how about you get me out of here first, and then we'll talk." She offers to which I reply with a mildly amused expression on my face. "No."

"What?"

"I thought I was quite clear when I spoke." I say, but repeat myself anyway. "No." Rosalia recoils as if struck. "You came here for information, yet you are not prepared to pay for it?" She asks, bewildered by what she thinks is stupidity. "Tch, this is just a waste of my time." She scowls at me.

"Indeed, and I see you've found a fulfilling way to spend it. I guess I'll leave you to it then." I reply offhandedly and turn to leave, but Rosalia rattles the bars of her cell to get my attention. "Wait! I'll... let's talk." She gives in.

"Much better."

"What is it that you want to know?" She asks and I pull a piece of paper out of my inventory and hand it to her. "I have here notes on the potential location of guilds that could be player killers. As the leader of such a guild yourself, I would appreciate it if you could confirm as much of it as you could." Rosalia looks over the notes briefly before responding. "You do realise that just because I'm part of an orange guild doesn't mean that I am familiar with any of the red ones."

"Orange, red, PK, call your guild whatever you want, it doesn't change what you're in here for, honestly it's all the same to me. Regardless, surely you've come across another guild of your ilk? Just because you may not have come across them does not mean that you haven't."

"What?" She asks, confused, and I sigh; why can't people keep up?

"Just because you say you haven't met them doesn't mean you're telling the truth." I reiterate in simpler terms. "You think I'd lie to you?" Rosalia asks, a little miffed, but I am not to be swayed.

"You may not want my honest answer to that." I reply coolly.

"Alright, look, I've met with other PKs, but not with the guilds." She concedes before lowering her voice to little above a whisper. "You didn't hear it from me, but you may want to look for a player named Rivan, he used to give us people to rob." Now we're getting somewhere.

"Thank you, and where might I find this Rivan?" I ask, trying to keep my excitement in check, I feel like a hunting dog that can smell its prey, yet is still held back by its master's leash, now, Rosalia, tell me where! "I don't know, he only ever found us. He may be a dead end, so don't come crying to me if whatever you're doing fails." I don't know how bitter my expression just became, but I can taste it across my tongue, the scent of the prey has all but vanished, with only a name to go by.

"Very well, that'll be all." I say, trying to keep all bitterness out of my voice as I turn to leave.

"Hey! What about some kind of payment? At least get me out of here!" Rosalia calls out and I turn to face her. "No. I think I'll leave you there to rot in your cell until your sentence is over." I reply.

"Well maybe there's a way that I can... convince you." She says, her tone changing from serious and desperate to seductive, she's put her whole body up against the bars now; forcing me to acknowledge her... somewhat provocative clothing. "No, my decisions are set in stone." I respond rather quickly and turning away to re-compose myself. "But tell you what, if I ever come across you outside of here, I'll give you ten seconds head start."

"Head start? On what?"

"Oh, you'll know if it ever happens, player killer Rosalia." I say sinisterly and walk away.

Just as I'm about to leave, laughter fills the jail; it echoes off of the stone walls, bouncing around and making it hard to distinguish the original laugh from the echoes. "Nice cape, kid, and I hear you're after Rivan? Ha! Boy, playing superhero with that man will get you killed." I look around for the speaker and find them in a cell, the very first one, in fact (how the hell did they hear our conversation? The part about Rivan was particularly guarded). "Thank you. I happen to like green. As for Rivan... well, we'll see who dies, now won't we? Or at least, one of us will." I say into the darkness of the cell, I can only see the speaker's lower body. "You're in over your head boy." They tell me dryly.

"Well than it's a good thing that I can swim. If not, I'll find some bodies to stand on top of." I reply with scathing politeness before stepping closer to them, my toes right up against the bars of the cell. "You think I'm playing? You think I'm trying to be a hero? Well, that would depend on your definition of a hero. If the heroes you know are vengeful and work only for self-satisfaction, then yes, I am a hero." I explain, my tone dark and mocking. "Goodbye, you scum-sucking filth of the earth." I snap and leave. I look forward to cleaning them up, whoever they are.

Whoever this Rivan is, he's clearly held in high regards, I'm going to have to be more careful than I am already trying to be. I had checked how long they had left on their sentences before I had left; Rosalia and the rest of Titan's Hand had a month, while the player who had tried to scare me off only had two weeks left. This is important because that means I have two weeks to find Rivan (I'll decide what to do with him once I find him) before that player tries to warn him. If I take too long, then it may end up as me being the one who is hunted.

Outside in the courtyard of the Black Iron Palace, I stretch my arms out above my head; it was cramped inside that jail. I should get moving, this was only one of the leads that I had been given; I pull out the piece of paper Manatu had given me earlier and quickly scan it. The guild 'Shadowmare' is suspected of being a player killing guild. I think they merit investigation; they may even be linked to Rivan.

If I simply go by the name of the guild, 'Shadowmare,' then it gives me the impression that they are hiding something, as their name can be interpreted as 'dark horse.' However, that's a very presumptuous way of looking at it and it may not amount to anything more than wanting a cool name for their guild. Having thought that, I highly doubt that the KOB would have put them on a list of potential player killers simply because of their name, I can't be certain as I don't know how they think. Regardless, they merit some investigation. From the notes Manatu wrote me, Shadowmare has a house on the twenty-third floor, if what is written here is correct, then it's quite far from any sort of civilisation and not in a safe-zone, so anyone attacked there could die in real life. But because it's far away from anything else, there aren't a whole lot of excuses I can use to justify my presence, I mean, if they walk in on my rifling through their drawers for incriminating document, I can hardly say 'Sorry, I was just looking for the inn,' now can I?

I teleport to floor twenty-three and head straight for the town's noticeboard. I have not fully discovered this floor myself, so I'm going to access the map data made public at the noticeboard. I find the Shadowmare headquarters on the map and head off in that direction. While I can't make any definite plans before I've seen this house of theirs, my mind is still working furiously, creating plans and tactics one after the other, but many are discarded shortly after their creation.

By the time I get into the general vicinity of the house, the sun is already beginning to set, I know, I'm the fastest player in the game, but I was walking. I'd killed some monsters on the way, but the experience I'd gained did next to nothing to fill the unreasonably large requirement I needed to level up. My map tells me that the path leading to the Shadowmare HQ is just up ahead, I am trying to sneak up on them, so I take a detour through the forest that densely populates this area so I can approach from an unsuspected angle. I activate the cat's eye skill and everything takes on a greenish hue; I can't see any footprints, so no-one's been here in the last hour, but this skill does make it a little easier to see in the dark.

It's dark beneath the canopy of the trees, and it doesn't help that it is now night-time. I draw my rapier slowly, so that it doesn't make a noise; the last thing I need is to be taken by surprise by a player or a monster. Rays of moonlight shine through the gaps in the leaves on the trees and paint an uneven and slightly wavering pattern on the grassy ground. Slowly, I place one foot in front of the other, watching where I step and making sure that no noise is made. I place my free left hand against the trunk of a nearby tree and scan the area around me. Something seems strange; if I had my headquarters in an unsafe area like this (or if I even has a HQ, regardless of where it was) I would surround it with traps to make sure that nothing could ambush me in my sleep.

There! Something glints at me a couple of metres away in the moonlight. Carefully, I approach it and kneel down to where it lies at the base of a tree. It's a metal hook and it appears to be floating, however I can see a very thin thread attached to it that goes all the way up and is secured around one of the tree's branches. I examine the curved part of the hook; it has more threads tied in its grasp. I stand up straight again and using the point of my rapier, I run it under the threads, lifting them slightly off of the grass. There seems to be a lot of other threads branching off of it and joining up with others in a grid-like pattern, it's a net. The threads it is made of are probably a strong metal of some sort and are stronger than they look, because the net looks like something my size was the smallest thing it was designed to capture.

Obviously, if I step on the net, it will do something to trap me, so using my rapier to keep track of the net's edge, I slowly find my way around it. This worked for a time, I only really moved sideways, and not any closer to my goal. I eventually figured that there would be no point in simply having one net, and that there was probably nets all around the building I aspired to reach, meaning that the only way to approach the HQ would be to use the track that leads up to it, but they probably have someone watching that. Frustrated, I look up at the sky through the leaves of the trees, hoping that it'll provide me with an answer. Hmm... leaves... leaves on branches... branches on trees... climbing on the branches on the trees. I shrug, it's better than waltzing straight up to the front door. I manage to scramble up the nearest tree trunk with ease (thank you insanely high agility stat!) and from there I focus on finding branches are located closer to my destination. If this were real life I would have fallen and gotten caught, a long time ago, but thankfully I'm agile enough in this game to do most things. It takes a while, but I finally pass over the net-covered ground, and now I have an unobstructed view of the Shadowmare HQ.

It's a two storey rectangular building with a triangular prism for a roof. Ten windows line the wall I can currently see, five on each level, the first three are dark, but the last two – the furthest from the entrance – have light shining out of them. The walls are wooden and there is a flower bed that runs along the side of the building, at the front there is a porch which has four flaming torches illuminating it with flickering golden light. I can't see anyone about at the moment, (and at this hour, who would want to be?) but someone must be awake if the last to windows suggest there are people there. I turn off cat's eye and leap down to the ground, landing lightly with my cape fluttering down behind me like a majestic... majestic... majestic thing (nailed it). But as awesome as my cape makes me look, I'm probably going to have to take it off for the moment; if I'm seen, well, lots of people wear black as I am now, but not many possess green capes and wear them from what I've seen. A little miffed, I de-quip the article.

I creep closer to the building, staying low to the ground and keeping the noise of my footsteps to a minimum. The ground here is fine sand that matches the sand leading up to the building from the road, so it crunches painfully loudly whenever it meets my hard-heeled boots. The flower bed clearly isn't something the members of Shadowmare take pride in as there are no flowers in it; it is simply dirt, a dirt patch that reaches out about a metre from the building itself. As my feet touch the dirt, my footsteps lose all noise and my movements are completely silent. I approach the porch and peer over the raised platform to re-confirm with myself that there is no-one up there before crawling under the handrail up onto the wooden platform and allowing my form become doused in light.

The door now stands before me, it, like the rest of the house, is wooden and had a metal handle protruding from its smooth surface. I extend one arm to grab it and wrap my fingers around it as I feel its coolness on my palm, then, ever so slowly, I push down. There is a loud click and someone whispered urgently "Someone's here!" Followed by a harsh voice saying:

"Get them." That was all I needed to hear, taking one step to close the distance, I vault over the porch railing, landing in the garden bed and I drop to the ground so that I am lying parallel to the building as the door bursts open and my ears become cluttered with the noise of the loud footsteps of many players and the pounding of my heart beating my chest like it owes it money. No, I haven't pissed myself, there's just a lot of moisture in this soil, so it look like- never mind.

"Spread out." Someone says, their voice in harsh and commanding, they proceeded to rattle off a list of names and then tell them where to search. Three people came into my line of sight, all of them green, I could probably (no guarantees) take them on if I needed to, but I'm not here to fight them... yet. You can't see someone's name tag or marker until you are aware of them and are within ten metres, which is good, because these people are all within eight metres of me, but only I know where I am. Maybe if I just stay still, they'll give up. "Hmm, must've been my imagination." One says and a grin splits my face like an axe cutting a log, but it disappears when another one challenges him. "No, no it was not your imagination. Have you never played Skyrim? There is _always_ someone there, now keep searching!" Crap. Thank you, Mr. Buzzkill.

"C'mon, let's go further up." Someone says; it's one of the three near me.

"Are you sure?" Asks one of the others and I start to mentally egg on whoever suggested moving on.

"Yes, we might find someone up there." The first voice insists. _Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes._

"Hmmm, well maybe one of us should stay." The second responds, the apathy in their voice is infuriating. _No, no, no, no, no._ "Urgh, you wuss, just follow me." _Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes._

"Oh alright, fine." _Yesssssssssssssss!_ I hear them wander off, then glance behind myself to make sure they're all going, and then rise from the ground to a crouch. I creep up to the raised floor of the porch and peer over it to make sure no-one is there before slipping up through a gap in the handrail around the edges and I sneak closer to the still open front door. I have to be quick yet quiet now, I'm completely bathed in light now, and while no-one can see me, any noise could prompt them to look. I silently step over the threshold and slowly push the door back so that it remains only slightly ajar.

I turn around to behold the front room of the Shadowmare headquarters, it's a bit dark, which surprises me as there had been players in this room not two minutes ago. Something nags at me from the back of my mind; the players just happened to be in this dark room, prepared to burst out the door at the slightest noise. It's too suspicious, were they waiting for me? No, surely not, if they had been waiting for me then their plan would have been way more complex, right? Maybe it's just that a series of coincidences somehow aligned perfectly for this to happen, but I think it is more likely that I'm walking into a trap. Damn it, this is messing with my head. Deep breaths... Okay, we're good, whatever happens happens, just go with it. With the moonlight shining through the windows I can vaguely see where I am going and I head towards the back of the room and move through a door to the next one.

The next room is lit up and I look around, it's like a meeting room. There are chairs and tables all set up in a rough semicircle around a... oh hello, what have we here? The item in question is a large map of the twenty-third floor, but I can only tell that by the basic shape of the topography depicted as there are no towns or landmarks visible, there is however a collection of red dots that populate the map and they have set my player killer senses tingling (or they would be tingling if I had any. I don't know; I'm just angry Shi- ahem, that people have died). I roll the map up and put it in my inventory and I get a notification telling me I have committed a crime. Thanks system; I needed that. I'm well aware that this will make it very obvious that someone has been here, but then again, they already knew that someone was at the front door, so I see no point. Maybe I could re-arrange the furniture to make it seem like I'm giving them non-existent clues or something... nah, that would take too long. I spot a staircase to the second floor and I quickly ascend it.

The top floor is a long hallway with three doors branching off of it at irregular intervals. The first room has a lot of beds in it, but I can't see anything of interest straight away, so I move on (I am on an uncertain time schedule here). The second room is lined with chests, weapon racks and armour mannequins, it's a storage room. This is probably where they keep all their gold, but I'm not here to rob them blind, just find incriminating evidence about them and kill them if it amount to anything, the difference is very subtle. The third room appears to be a study or office. "Bingo." I mutter with a smirk because this room reeks of importance. There are book shelves along the sides and a large desk in the middle with a large assortment of loose papers strewn over it.

I scan the pages without touching them; I don't know what I'm looking for here, so nothing catches my eye or demands my attention. Suddenly, I hear voices outside. Not outside as in outside the building. Outside as in outside the room. They are about halfway down the hallway by my best guess and I begin frantically searching for an escape route. The door? No, that would lead right to them. Hide? No, I have no clue how long they'll be in here for and they'll probably find me. Invisibility potions? No, those don't exist here, believe me, I've tried. That leaves the window. I rush over and try to open it. It's a square window that is made up of two outwards swinging doors. I can hear the footsteps approaching the door as I open the window. I briefly contemplate how one is supposed to exit second story windows, but I hear the door handle opening and I dive out the window with the elegance of a sack of potatoes. That said, I've seen some pretty elegant sacks of potatoes in my time here. My palms hit the ground first and I use my momentum to transfer it into a forward roll and I come up running and I sprint down the path that leads up to the building. It needs to be said that I wouldn't have been able to do that in real life; I might've made the jump, but I would probably have landed on my head.

I sure hope that this map was worth the effort.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twelfth chapter of Player Killer Killer! I'm pretty happy with how long it took me to update this time, hopefully I can keep this up. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 12**

I've teleported to floor fifty-five and I'm back in Grandzam, but this time I'm staying in an inn rather than visiting the Knights of the Blood Oath. I'm lodged on the third floor, which also happens to be the highest one so that no-one can spy on me through the window without looking incredibly suspicious from the outside, but despite this I still pull the curtains to block out all outside light. There's not much light to block out as it is still the same night that I acquired the strange map of the twenty-third floor from the Shadowmare headquarters, in fact I only picked up the map an hour ago and found a place to stay in the last twenty minutes. I light some candles and lay the map in question out on a low table that sits before a couch so that I can examine it further.

Unsurprisingly, it hasn't changed a bit from when I had picked it up (if it had changed I would be worried) and is still just as cryptic to me as it was before. The red dots are still there, but now that I have the map to myself, I can see that there are seven of them. The strangest thing about these dots is that they have no correspondence to any landmarks on floor twenty-three, and to make sure of this I jot down all the landmarks I know of with a pencil while using my map as a reference. I sit back to observe my handiwork, hoping for results, but only reaping frustration. There are no similarities whatsoever, these dots are all in places that are nowhere near anything, have no name and are in the middle of nowhere!

What is the purpose of this map? It doesn't mark anywhere important or... no, wait, it does mark important places. Seven of them in fact, places that must be significant to Shadowmare only, only they know what these dots mean. Well that's just golden. Not only do I have a nigh useless map that I cannot interpret, but by taking this map I've probably destroyed my chances of getting any information out of Shadowmare if I went back to them because they'll be too busy trying to get their map back. Not to mention that I've got about thirteen days to catch Rivan before that person in jail gets out and finds him first. "Damn it!" I bark, slamming my fist onto the table's wooden surface. Crap, I can't think straight, I'm too pissed to think properly.

I sigh, it's late and I should probably get some rest, so I walk over to the bed, de-quip my armour and fall onto the blankets face first. I roll over and look up at the ceiling, just trying to focus on breathing. Something's not right, I decide and I stand back up, dressed only in my black pants and tunic, I'm not prepared for any fight that might come my way, but I am in a safe zone, so as long as I'm awake I should be safe. I start pacing around the room, something's not right, I can't shake the feeling off and it's bugging me to no end. Am I being watched? No, I can't be, I've pulled the curtains closed; no-one can see me. But am I being followed? You don't need to see someone to follow them; you just need to know where they are or where they're going.

I sit down on the couch, elbows on my knees and hands cradling my head. I'm being watched! No I'm not! I'm being followed! No I'm not! They've found me! Who are they? These phrases bounce around my head along with things like: kill the killers! Find them! Vengeance! The noises echo in my brain. My hands grip my skull and my knees begin to shake and I can't hold them still, I've lost control of my body! My teeth grit, my knuckles turn white and my feet tap uncontrollably and then... silence. The shaking stops and all the voices die down, but their owners are still there. I let out a pent up breath as my whole being relaxes, slouching back on the couch, I look up at the wooden ceiling once more. Am I paranoid? I've decided that I am, but as long as I am aware of that I should be able to control it... hopefully. I know that in some extreme cases, paranoia can ruin friendships and break up families. This fact sinks in and I have a small cry because my only friend is dead and my family is split up as it is.

I wake up the next morning somewhat confused. I don't remember when I fell asleep or when I made it back to my bed. I stand up, stretch, eat some food and equip my armour and rapier. I open the curtains to let light shine through the curtains, illuminating the room and I sit down to look back over the map; now that my head is clearer I may be able to derive something from it. I notice that something is wrong shortly after blankly observing a shiny table top for about twenty seconds: the map is gone. The map is gone. The _map_ is _gone._ THE MAP IS GONE! I stand up abruptly causing the table to get pushed onto its side and I speak my thoughts in full. "THE MAP IS GONE!" I shout angrily.

I stand in the middle of the room, teeth grit and hands squeezing invisible (and non-existent) stress balls. Something snapped inside me in a moment when all else went silent and I remained immobile for the duration of the noise before I heard a noise like boiling water. It got louder until it was the only sound I could hear and every muscle in my body clenched, had this been the real world my hands would be bleeding from how hard my nails are pushing against the skin. I could feel my heartbeat thumping throughout my body, causing my body to vibrate in tune with it. My left eye twitches violently and I raise my right arm above my head, hand still clenched in an iron-grip fist before slamming it down into my side in anger, panting heavily. The sound of boiling water faded, my body relaxed and I fell back onto the couch and all noise was replaced by silence. Suddenly, a noise like a large drum rung through me as if I was the instrument itself. Boom. Can't even hold onto a map. Boom. Weak. Boom. Revenge. Boom. Useless. Boom. Kill. Boom. Useless. BOOM. KILL.

I lie on the couch, eyes wide open and hands gripping the pillows as these words repeat in my mind, they bounce off of the sides, hit each other and join up to become even louder. That map was my only solace; it was what I had put my faith into so that I might not feel so bad about Shino's death, knowing that I had _something_ to go on with. If I stopped player killing, maybe I could have lived with myself. Once again, my body relaxed, but this time I have complete control. "I have to find the map." I mutter as I stand up and walk out the door.

I step outside the inn and make a sharp right turn, walking parallel and right next to the inn itself. I don't get far before a large man steps in front of me, he's got a battleaxe over his shoulder and his armour is adorned with red and white. I make an apologetic gesture, pretending that I'm the one at fault and try to step around him, but he moves to block me again. Thinking that this is one of those times that you nearly run into someone and you both end up blocking each other off in order to get around the other, I try again, but once again, I am cut off. Something's not right here; his movements are too calm. Only now do I recognise him as a KOB member. "Look, I know your guild just about owns this city, but you're being awfully obnoxious." I inform the man darkly, but he remains silent and in my way. It's now that I notice something else: this street is oddly clear of people. I also notice something else within another half-second: The people that are here are all with KOB and are all in a semicircle around me. Third realisation in fifteen seconds: this is a trap.

I quickly take a step back, and as my weight shifts to my back foot, I turn my body to look around. In that instant I count nine other KOB members, ten in total, all with varying weaponry, heights, weights and faces. I leap back as the large man lunges forward to grab me, I would fight him off, but we're in a safe zone and we haven't initiated a duel, so I can't draw my rapier. "Surrender." Someone tell me angrily. "What for?" I respond; I don't know why these people are attacking me, all I know is that they _are_ attacking me. Or maybe their trying to capture me, hmm.

Another of my assailants runs at me, but I side step them and trip them up, sending them crashing to the ground. The semicircle around me tightens and I cast another glare at the group, sizing everyone up as quickly and effectively as I can. I realise that this isn't a hastily thrown together ambush, this is a well-planned trap. Everyone here is bigger than me in both height and breadth (that said I'm a medium sized scrawny boy). The way they're set out, the way they're closing in, it's all to cut off my escape routes, even the opening left by the person on the floor has already been filled, all opportunities are blocked off. Except for one.

High agility stats not only allow one to move faster, but also to perform more athletic feats and move freely to ridiculous extents, this is a fact that needs to be kept in mind because there is no way in hell that I would be able to replicate this moment in real life under any circumstances. I jump up towards the wall of the inn and land with my right foot on a window sill. From there I thrust myself directly up and grab onto the window sill above me and pull my body up to it just as someone tries to jump up to grab me. I scale the building to be up on the third and top storey window sill and I jump again, reaching for the roof. My fingers wrap around the gutter and I jump to make it easier to pull myself up (I'm relying on strength stats now, which aren't my proudest numbers). I'm able to pull myself up so that my hips are level with the roof and I begin to bring my legs up, but a shadow covers my being and I see someone standing over me with one foot raised behind them. "Oh piss off." I spit at them as their foot swings towards my head, but I bring my arms up in an 'X' shape to fend off the attack, which sends me flying away from the inn and out in the air above the middle of the street.

Gravity kicks in and I fall down towards the cobblestones, but just before I hit the ground, someone catches me and holds me to their body in a giant bear hug. My arms may be trapped, but I'm still able to use my legs, so I manage to kick at them. By the reaction I got from my captor after landing my heel between their legs, I'd say they're male. They lean forward far enough for my feet to touch the ground, and all it takes is a little push from me to make them tip over and knock their head on the ground and releasing me. Free once more, I quickly dodge another three attempts at my freedom in a variety of ways that would have probably earned me an award for dancing. I know it's blatantly obvious to see that I'm trying not to get caught, I'm trying even harder now because I don't want to hear and comments comparing my footwork to ballet (it's tolerable when I do it, not when anyone else does it, okay?).

I elbow someone in the kidney, making them do a weird squirmy series of movements and I push them to the side and run. I've somehow made an opening for escape. My feet hit the ground hard as I sprint away from my attackers. I look ahead, it won't take me long to outrun them, I should be able to- wait, is that a rope? That was the last thing that went through my mind before I was clothes lined by a long rope that was stretched across the street just below my head height and my momentum carried my body forward, and then up to be completely horizontal mid-air before dropping unceremoniously to the ground with a hollow thud. "Urgh." I groan as I prop myself up with my elbows, my ears are ringing like someone has hit a gong inside my head. I open my eyes again and I really do not like what I see; it's big, it's covered in armour, it's above me, it's probably- OH MY GOD IT'S ON TOP OF ME!

Allow me to clarify; one of the largest players in the capture-me force thought that it would be a good idea to suppress my attempts to escape by putting their body on top of my body. Forcefully. The rest of the group, apparently seeing wisdom in this action, quickly follow suit and throw themselves on top like some elegance-lacking sacks of potatoes. "You bastard." I mutter as the silhouettes of the players involved descend upon me and if we hadn't have been in a safe zone, my ribcage would have... well, it wouldn't be a ribcage anymore, let's go with that. As much as I currently detest this method, I have to concede its effectiveness.

This whole mess probably looks like a large pile of armour and computer-generated-human-flesh with my head poking out of one end. I can't move anything other than my neck and head (I am going to inflict a life-threatening injury on whoever is pinning down my fingers). I hear footsteps approaching and I look up in the direction they approach from, accepting whatever fate may come. "Weeeeeeeeeell, lookie here." Someone says, I don't care who they are, I've decided I hate them. "What have we here?" They ask, they're probably not expecting an answer, but I give them one anyway. "The worst game of stacks-on in history." The person stops before me and drops down to squat next to me.

"Very funny, but it would seem that you have fallen victim to my masterful ambush and trapping skills." I can't see them properly, but I've figured that the speaker is male, but their voice is quite high pitched, so either they haven't been shot by puberty, or they recently took a kick to the groin (I wonder if that was me?). "Congratulations, you've commanded your force of thirty against one person and won, how do you feel, you sorry excuse for a-" I start, but before I could land a scathing insult, they clamp my lips shut with two fingers. "You are awfully chipper for someone who is stuck beneath a pile of people. This attitude will have to change." They tell me and I manage to free my lips.

"Sorry, I only have sarcastic and pissed." As you can see, I'm really not in the mood for this crap. He's part of the KOB, shouldn't he be on the front lines with all his soldiers, not having them sit on someone?

"Now, Rin, why don't you come with us to Grandzam for a little chat?" They ask in a way that said: _regardless of what you say you're coming with us_. "We're already in Grandzam." I point out.

"Stupid, stupid Rin, I'm talking about the fortress, don't worry, you'll be lodged in one of our comfortable stone cells."

"Oh, would you look at the time! See that time? It's not time for you or your crap, so if you'll excuse me I'll be going" I snap surprisingly loudly for someone crushed beneath two-hundred plus kilograms. "Alright boys, take him in." They say and turn away.

"Uh, sir? I'm a girl." One of my squashers protests.

"You take him in as well."

"Yes sir!" I don't even bother resisting as the players peel themselves off of me and I am lifted off my feet by two people and marched away.

I am taken down to the dungeons of Grandzam and thrown into a cell that is disturbingly reminiscent of the Black Iron Palace's prison (fittingly called the Black Iron Prison) back on floor one. "We'll come and get you for questioning later." The man tells me, now that I can see him; I can see that his name is Domonic. I remain silent as my captors empty out of the room. Great, so now I have to get the map back, get out of this place, find out what Shadowmare are up to and find Rivan all before that one prisoner gets out of Black Iron Prison and finds Rivan first.

I take a deep breath and sigh, I open my inventory and get out a cushion and throw it onto the metal bed that awaits me. If I'm going to be imprisoned, I might as well do it in comfort.


	13. Chapter 13

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the next chapter of Player Killer Killer. Once again, I'm sorry for how long it took for this chapter to be completed, I would have had it up earlier, but there was some issue with the website not letting me upload the chapter in the first place, but clearly, that has been resolved now. Anyway, I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, now that that's out of the way, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 13**

I heard a heavy door swing open and hit a wall noisily, and then the footsteps of multiple people, armour clinking as they moved, approaching my cell. I sighed, stood up, and put my cushion back into my inventory, I doubt they'll confiscate it though, but this is just in case they don't take kindly to my attempt at comfort. It's obvious that they're here to see me as I'm the only one in the whole of Grandzam's dungeon, which seems like a waste of space, because it's a big place. I figure that I've been here for about six hours, so it should be afternoon by now and I am bored as hell, so I welcome this interruption.

Urgh, I take that back, it's Domonic, along with two of his retainers. Ever since he had thirty or so people jump on top of me, I've hated him, and that's not a great track record given that that was how we met. I cross my arms over my chest and lean against a wall with the best _no time for your BS_ expression that I can manage. "Afternoon, Rin." He says, from the way his voice is, it sounds like he is constantly on the verge of laughter. "I hope you've found your accommodation to be satisfactory." He unlocks my cell door to let me out. "I was having a great time until your presence dirtied the air." I spit out at him and he laughs. The only part of him that moves when he laughs is his shoulders and he makes a 'kukukuku' noise. "I'd love to spend this time trading trash talk, but I'm afraid that you'll be dirtying the presence of our leader tonight. Now, off we go." He starts to walk off and I follow before his bodyguards can try and push me around.

I follow Domonic out of the jail and up to Grandzam's courtyard flanked by the two retainers, one on each side and both too close for comfort. The courtyard is filled with many KOB members, some of which cast me curious glances before going back to whatever business they were attending, although their looks are more interested then suspicious, I still pull my cape around me self-consciously. I am lead through a door and ascend two flights of stairs, then walk the length of a hallway, through another door, up some more stairs, another hall, more stairs, more stairs, stairs, stairs... stairs. Holy crap, it's a miracle that this place isn't called Stair Castle, because unlike Grandzam (what the hell is a Grandzam for that matter?), it is justified.

We stop at the top of a particularly tall and circular flight of stairs and before us stands a large set of wooden double doors. Domonic pushes them open and steps into the room on the other side. I follow him and look around. The room is semi-circular, with the entirety of the curved wall was glass (but I can't see what the point is because I can't see anything out of it), while the flat side was stone and housed the door we had just walked through. Towards the back of the room there was a long curved table that followed the bend of the window with tall seats behind it at regular intervals, with the tallest being in the middle, like a throne and the KOB emblem (a white sword on a red background with the letters 'K', 'O' and 'B' at the bottom, with the 'B' facing the wrong way, which was annoying to look at) hanging from the table at both ends and in the centre. Sitting in the seats were obviously the higher members of the guild, all conveniently silhouetted against the back window. Domonic and his retainers headed to the back of the room leaving me standing in the centre of the room, I can feel heat rising into my cheeks as I feel every eye in the room being focussed onto me.

"Rin." The man in the middle said, his voice was deep, but loud enough to fill the room, and loud enough to startle me. I'm going to assume that this man is the head of the guild, because everyone is too far away for me to see anyone's name tags. "Yes?" I respond in a bored voice; I'm not about to let all these people know that all this attention is embarrassing me. "You are a concern to us, Rin. We want to know what you are up to." He tells me, his voice taking a hardened tone, but I try my best to remain cool and mildly passive aggressive. "Me? Oh, you know, not much really, I just walked out of an inn and was jumped on." I say, and just as the man opens his mouth to speak, I add something else on: "Literally." He starts to speak again, but I beat him to it once again: "By thirty people."

"I must interject, sir," Domonic speaks up "it was fifteen."

"SILENCE!" The man shouted and the room quietened to dead silence in a second with only the sound of a small trickling noise that only I heard (thankfully).

"You stayed at a nearby inn overnight, correct?" The man asks.

"Yes." I respond in a strained voice as I internally battle with my own bladder for dominance.

"Yesterday you spoke to one of our more well-informed members, enquiring about player killers and their whereabouts, is this also correct?" He interrogated.

"Was that yesterday? Prison cells make you lose your sense of time." I say, reinstating my control over my bowels once more. "You then teleported down to the first floor and consorted with one of the imprisoned members of Titan's Hand, and then emerged from the prison ten minutes later." I'm watching this man very closely now; he seems to know a little too much for my liking. I'm certain I told Manatu to keep quiet, it seems that was a poor choice and that he's a filthy snitch, I mean, he didn't even bother to add that it was for their protection! If he had said that, then I wouldn't be here, the bitch! Anyway, how does he know that I went to floor one? With the information I was given... no, wait, Titan's Hand being in the floor one prison was my only solid lead, it would only make sense that I follow up on that one first, so this man may be bluffing how much he knows. No, that isn't the case, otherwise how could he know that I had been in there for ten minutes, of course he could be bluffing that too, but I don't think that is the case. But how could they have caught up with me so fast? There must have had to have been someone else nearby at the time who could start following me shortly after I had left, but who? Oh well, the name doesn't really matter, I most likely haven't heard of them.

"You also had a map of the twenty-third floor, that is where you went after the first floor, is it not?" The man asks, now this grabs my attention. "Give that map back to me." I demand, my glare is piercing, but not sharp enough to crack this man. "Did you, or did you not go to the twenty-third floor?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Answer me!"

"I did, it just wasn't what you wanted to hear." I snap in return, why are there so many people getting in my way?! "Did you, or did you not go to the twenty-third floor?" He asks, more forcefully this time.

"I might answer you if you give me the map." I reason, proposing a trade.

"I might give you the map if you answer my question." The man counters with his own idea. I'm detecting a none-too-subtle conflict of interests here, and not only is it wasting my time, but it is getting on my nerves. Damn, I should have gone through an information broker, it might have taken longer and costed more, but at least I wouldn't have been betrayed, which reminds me, I must get around to rearranging the pixels that make up Manatu's existence in this world; he's useless if he can't keep secrets.

"Is there a way in which I can get my map back, which you stole, let's not forget, without answering any of your intrusive questions?" I ask, because sometimes the best way to get what you want is just to ask straight up rather than resorting to underhanded tactics. That said, I don't expect approval for such a one-sided ask. "What if I duel against one of your members, and if I win, I get what I want." I suggest and the man rubs his chin (well I assume that's what he's doing, I can only see a silhouette, so it's either that or he just punched himself in the face slowly) in consideration. "If you lose, you'll tell me what I want to know... hmm, and you'll join this guild where I can keep an eye on you." He bargains.

"Right." I say, letting him know what I think, but he's not done yet.

"And it'll have to be more than one player." He adds and I sigh.

"You know what? Fine, I'll take your one-sided bet (and shove it back down your throat, you arse), but if I'm going to get my message across, I'm going to do it properly." I say, and then point at the silhouette of the man forcefully (it seemed dramatic, okay?) "I want to fight ten men!" I announce and there is silence for ten seconds, one which I break myself to add: "Or women, I'm all for equality." There is more silence, which is suddenly interrupted by laughter. It's practically gushing out of the man, his large frame shaking with every breath, and he seems genuinely amused, nothing fake over there. "Very well Rin! You have yourself a deal. Prepare yourself for tomorrow when you will fight some of our best players. Take him back to his cell."

"Yes, Heathcliff, sir!" Domonic and his retainers say in unison.

"At least shake my hand, coward." I mutter as I allow Domonic's retainers to manhandle me down the stairs we had previously come up.

The metallic clang of the cell door echoed through the long stone dungeon as it closed. I sighed and sat on the bed as Domonic and his retainers left, I lay back on the uncomfortable stone platform and knot my fingers behind my head. I'm losing time to catch Rivan, how long do I have? Thirteen days? Well, twelve now (courtesy of Heathcliff and the rest of KOB). But if I actually catch Rivan, what would I do with them? Well, interrogation is obvious, but I'll probably kill them once I'm done with them (are they male or female? Not having gender pronouns is making this annoying). Hopefully they'll leak information like a tap and tell me which guilds are player killers. Everyone know that Laughing Coffin is a PK guild, but they aren't recognised by the system, hopefully Rivan will know.

I know I should get some sleep, but after what happened to Shi-... Shin-... ahem, the possibility of getting killed in my sleep climbs with every step I delve into this issue. Although, maybe I'm being a little too cautious; I _am_ in the largest discovered city so far, inside a large stone castle, I'm underground and behind at least two locked doors. I know I'm probably just being played by my self-diagnosed paranoia, but it hasn't been wrong yet, so I'm curious as to whether it's actually intuition or not. It's strange, it's like I am able to see my mental state and way of thinking, but am unable to manipulate or change either of them, like I'm a prisoner to my own mind. It is at this point (thankfully) that common sense kicks in and puts my fears to rest. At the moment, I'm too valuable to KOB for them to let me be killed, so I should be safe. Taking this as solace, I sigh and get out my cushion and put it beneath my head and just look at the ceiling, until finally... I fall asleep.


	14. Chapter 14

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the fourteenth chapter of Player Killer Killer! I'm glad that it did not take me long to type this chapter up, that said, it is admittedly the shortest chapter, however, the next chapter will be (hopefully) quite long in contrast. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 14**

I woke up felling not-entirely rested. I'm going to assume that it is morning because five KOB members, including Domonic, just came into my cell and yanked me out of bed and onto the cold stone floor. I was quick to open my eyes and stand up to find myself directly in front of a tall woman dressed in red and white armour. "Morning." I greeted with false politeness, but she didn't make a noise, instead she just gripped my upper tight arm with her armoured left hand, lifting me just off of the ground and putting me down outside of the cell. "I can walk." I snarl, instantly riled up. I had been prepared to be somewhat nice to everyone today, but after being handled like that, well, I've only been awake for thirty seconds and I'm already sick of this crap."Morning Rin, how did you sleep?" Domonic asks. "Fitful and nightmare-plagued, I hope?"

"Tch. I had one nightmare, but then it just turned out to be your pathetic, pitiful presence." I retort in a hard tone and he laughs. His laughter is very internalised; rather than making a great deal of noise, his shoulders shake and he makes a weird half-chuckling noise.

I am marched out of the jail and out of the castle entirely. Behind the castle there is a large arena, similar to the Coliseum in Rome, except not as destroyed. A large variety of players are milling around outside and it wasn't until I was closer did I realise that they were, in fact, lining up to buy entry tickets to the arena. Tickets to what? I look around and see posters on every wall reading: _one versus ten! Can one player take on ten others and win? Place your bets and buy tickets at the arena_ , or just other variations of that, but the one thing that is the same throughout all of them is the KOB emblem in the background, behind the message. I see, if the publicise this, even if they lose they will get money anyway from admission and bets et cetera (that said, if I do win, they'll probably try to use that money to bribe the information out of me anyway), which is smart, sickeningly so.

I am lead through the door labelled 'Competitor's Entrance' and taken to a small room. "The fight begins in fifteen minutes" Domonic tells me as the other four KOB members file out of the room. "Personally, I can't wait to see you be utterly destroyed by our soldiers." He chuckles and I raise an eyebrow at him. "Oh really?"

"Oh indeed, Rin, indeed. You see, there's just something about you that just gets on my nerves, it's something that makes me want to drown you with complete humiliation, y'know?" Domonic explains, stepping uncomfortably close as he did so. Now, I'm intimidated relatively easily, that I am aware of, but not when it's one-on-one as it is at the moment. "Yes, and you've got this vibe about you that makes me want to separate your head from your shoulders." I respond, getting even closer to Domonic, but he just laughs and starts to walk away slowly (yeah, you walk, bitch). "Unfortunately, Rin, I only get to watch your destruction from the sidelines, believe me, I relish in the thought of impaling you on a pike, but Heathcliff told me not to participate in this fight."

"Just... get out." I snap as rudely as I can manage. "And take your crappy rhymes with you!" Domonic leaves, his shoulders shaking from his weird-arse laughter. "Arsehole." I mutter as he disappears from my sight.

I spend some time going through my inventory, making sure that I have all my best apparatus equipped, but, in all honesty, it's a pointless exercise, as the only equipment I have _is_ my best. I mentally prepare myself for the upcoming fight in... ten minutes now. Calm down, it's just like killing player killers, except my opponents aren't player killers, and no-one really dies, so it's not really the same... the main principle of fighting is though, so focus on that. It's like practice, I reason, but then my mind begins to wander. Like taking a mock exam. Like writing a draft. Like sex with a con- I should probably call my consciousness back from la-la-land now.

One minute left. I stand, shaking my arms from shoulder to fingertip to loosen them up (it doesn't do anything in-game, but it helps my mind), I do the same with my legs, putting all my weight on one so that I can shake the other. I roll my shoulders around in their sockets and stretch my neck from side to side, all with a restless feeling inside me. Thirty seconds. I crack my knuckles in anticipation, taking deep breaths as I do so. Twenty seconds. I take a deep breath and hold it. Zero seconds, a door opens and golden light floods the small room, I release my breath and walk out the door, squinting as my eyes adjust to the light.

My vision returns to me and I look around, the ground is a yellowish stone with a thin layer of sand and salt over it that crunches as my combat boots make contact with it. A four metre high wall of smooth grey stone encased the battlefield in a large oval, the only breaks in the wall was at the northern, southern, eastern and western points of the oval where the entrances were. I had come through the southern entrance, so I had to walk the farthest distance to the northern end where I could see my ten opponents were standing. The northern entrance is the largest, with a towers standing tall above it with an emperor's box up at the top, Heathcliff is probably looking down on this whole thing from up there, thinking that it is already over and that he's won (hopefully this will all be a pleasant surprise, for me, not him, that is). The battle field is huge, five hundred metres long and about three hundred wide, I estimate. By my best guess, I'd say that the stands rose up another twenty-five metres from the four metre wall as they got higher, they also got further away, similar to an amphitheatre, with the northern tower being the only break in its repetition, and the emperor's bow going even higher than the arches that topped the stands.

I'm finally standing before my ten challengers, who stood in a semi-circle and were all dressed in red and white and awaiting my arrival. The stands are almost full of spectators, which comes as a surprise to me as I was never a popular or well-known player, and the small handful who knew who I was were not on my friend list. In fact, since Sh-... that event that happened in the past, my friend list has been empty. I look up at the emperor's box, and then down to my competitors, analysing every aspect of them that I can and formulating strategies as quickly as I can. One dagger, three swords and a hand-axe wielder all in light armour, a heavily armoured broadsword holder along with two slightly less covered battleaxe bearers and a mace (ew, that'll have to go). The tenth member of the Anti-Rin force before me is also the most disappointing, I don't care if they use a rapier, knowing that they are even more similar to me than I had originally thought does not make me like them any more than I already do (which is not much at all). The tenth member is Ereni.

No way is Ereni one of the top ten best fighters in KOB, just because he's using a rapier does not make him one of the best in the guild (or my equal, for that matter), I get it, they're trying to show some diversity, but I'm pretty sure that Ereni is just a little bitch. The broadsword user is heavily armoured, so heavily, that not a centimetre of skin is visible, not even his/her face can be seen. "Rin, are you ready?" He/she asks (holy, crap, even the voice is gender-neutral, I can live with not knowing the gender, but it's just nice to know, now I don't know if it's a boy, a girl, both or neither) and in answer I open my inventory, push a few buttons and send the duel request, Everyone accepts the terms I have set, being a normal duel where nobody dies, and a countdown appears before my eyes, starting at five. By three, everyone is ready and our breath reeks of anticipation. Two. I bend my knees slightly, ready to push off in any direction as soon as that timer hits zero. One. It seems like this is the longest second of my life, long enough to regret life decisions.

Zero.

 **I'll apologise for this cliffhanger, but I'm not, really.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the fifteenth chapter of Player Killer Killer. For those interested, I'm posting this on the same day as the fourteenth chapter because, as much as I enjoy cliffhangers (giving, not receiving), I felt that the one I had left it on was maybe just a bit too mean. I do not own SAO or any of the characters, I only own my OCs, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 15**

My first movement was to jump backwards as the broadsword wielder, clad head to toe in armour, attacked first with an overhead strike. It was a very predictable manoeuvre and an especially easy one to dodge, this person, I reason, is probably in the 'top ten' because he/she/it can do great amounts of damage in one hit, not because they are packing a whole lot of skill. Chances are they don't even bother trying to dodge attacks because their defence statistic is so high; however, they are used to fighting monsters with attack patterns, not scrawny teenage boys with a grudge and the ability to move really quickly. Now that they were before me, I readied and used straight strike, landing the blow onto their chest and dealing a significantly-less-than-satisfactory amount of damage. No sooner than my attack had connected, the two battleaxe holder moved in, weapons raised to attack and I use the chest plate of the broadsword's (I'm just going to refer to my opponents by their weapons, it's just easier for me) armour as a launch-pad and propel myself backwards, relying on my high agility stats to transfer my momentum into a double backwards roll before standing tall (164cm) again.

The mace charges at me, the head of their brick-on-a-stick raised above their head and glowing. "There shall be no maces." I mutter, stepping in so that the two of us were less than a metre apart, and as they swung down I brought my blade up above my head, spun around to ensure that they didn't hit me, until I finally sliced them from the side from shoulders to hips, eliminating them from the fight instantly as they fell to the ground. The two halves of them don't separate, but a red line does appear from the back of their neck, running all the way down to their pelvis, the combined damage dealt by my rapier and the mace having been cut in half was enough to knock them out of the fight. "What...?" I hear them ask no-one in particular as I jump to avoid another dual assault from the battleaxes. I dodge both attacks with relative ease, but the real threat comes from the broadsword, who comes running at me, steps, and brings their blade in a wide arc in front of them. Just before they strike, I close the distance between us and duck down as the sword's blade whistles above my head and I spin in my crouched position, aiming a kick at the back of this armoured titan's knees, but to no avail as they are not affected in the least.

As I roll away from that confrontation, I feel something like a jolt in my lower back; it's the dagger, they'd been sneaking around me this whole time and had landed the first hit on me. They're behind me and to my left, I'm right-handed, so my rapier is on the other side of my body; I don't think I have the range to hit them. Instead of using my weapon, I stretch out my left arm and backhand them across the face. Now, there would be nothing outstanding about this feat, except that my hand glowed red and caught fire as I swung and knock my assailant three metres back and leaving them with a burning head. There was utter silence and no movement for a solid five seconds as everyone came to terms with the events that had just occurred, until I posed a question: "So, was anyone else aware of the flaming backhanded bitch-slap skill?" I ask my competitors, but receive only silence as a reply. "Okay, just checking." I say offhandedly and start to walk away. "Oh, wait." I say, remembering that I am currently fighting for my freedom and side-step as the hand-axe comes barrelling past me, cursing as their sneak attack fails, I try to cut at their neck, but they lean away in the nick of time and my blade meets only oxygen (or whatever pixelated crap we breath in here).

The three players wielding swords rush me and try to surround me, but I trip one of them over with a low kick and stab them in the back before rolling away as another tries to cut me. I have a short duel with the third player, but it doesn't last longer than five strikes as it was disrupted by the other two getting in the way. The three of them are around me now in a triangle, so now I have to parry, deflect and block attacks left right and centre. This is hard; I've got three people to keep track of, and I can only keep one of them in my line of sight at a time, two if I rely on my peripheral vision. Activating mirage blade, I spin in a full circle on the spot, my rapier's blue afterimage catching all of their attacks at once. I drop low to the ground and kick out at one of the three's knees, they didn't have the most stable and ready stance, so their knee was jarred as I tried to force it into an unnatural angle. I follow this up with straight strike and the effect of mirage blade dissipates, the impact of my attack pushes them backwards, but I'm not done with them yet. As they are in the process of falling I catch them with blade rain, the rule of blade rain is that if the first strike hits, then the rest of them do (it's a salvo of five). The 'Eliminated' message appears to the player in the form of a red hexagon and they groan in annoyance.

The crowd roars their approval and anger all around me... crap. I'd forgotten the crowd was there; I'd been fighting in a trance-like state for a while now, and I've been fine. Now, on the other hand, I feel tiny and insignificant, thank you crowd, for reminding me of my social awkwardness, ineptness and of all my other people-related issues.

The two other swords stand either side of me, raining blows down on me and I only manage to dodge a few as I regain my senses and try to escape, but my body is seemingly sluggish and unresponsive, as if I'm moving while submerged in molasses. This is not a status effect, if it were I would be able to tell by a symbol beside my health bar, no, this is a creation of my own mind, I fear people so much that I cannot function properly because of it. It's like everyone in the arena is an enemy. I grit my teeth and duck down, in control again, and perform a broad sweep with my right leg, tripping both attackers with it, I then retreat ten paces to give me some time to get a hold of the situation again.

The two battleaxes charge at me from both sides, but I just wait for them to get closer. They get within five metres and I drop to the ground as they begin their attacks, but they have both clearly seen the same action movies as me, because they both stop running and let their strikes slice apart the air before them, rather than each other as my plan was to have them do. I activate longsword and make a couple of experimental jabs at both of them, but only one of my attacks hits one of them and the result is mediocre at best before they both backed out of range as the two remaining swords rushed in for round three. I've just about had it with these two, I decide as the surround me and I focus solely on dodging. This goes on for about twenty seconds before I grab one of their hands as they go for a thrust and step aside and force their arm forward... right into the other sword's stomach. "Idiot!" The one who got hit insults their teammate. "I'm sorry!" Comes the frantic reply. I step away and then skewer the two of them on my rapier like a giant, uncooked, complaining human shish kebab (please excuse my sudden cravings). I wriggle my blade around in their bodies so that a constant stream of damage is applied, but I can't do it for long because I can sense someone behind me; it's the dagger.

I pull my blade out of its temporary human sheath and spin around, hitting the dagger in the side of the head with the small iron ball at the bottom of my rapier's handle (it's for balance, but as I have demonstrated, it too can be weaponised), then grab them by the collar and drive my knee into their stomach. As the wind is robbed from their body, I release them, and then grab them by the hair and pull their head down to meet my knee. There was a sickening yet satisfying crack as their unprotected face met my armoured knee and I threw them to the ground and I am about to finish them off, but I have to dodge a side swing from a battleaxe.

"I'm getting real sick 'n' tired of my combos being broken." I mutter as duck beneath another swing, from that position I leap up and lunge forward, rapier extended out in front of me and I catch them in a rather large chink in their armour: the armpit. I put all the force I can muster into this penetrating attack, driving it further into them until the tip of my blade protruded from their shoulder, creating a hole in their pauldron and damages the armour beyond its durability threshold and it explodes into white triangles. I step in close and push my victim off-balance and withdraw my weapon momentarily and catch them mid-air with blade rain, eliminating them by the third hit. In my haste, I had forgotten about the other seven people in the arena and the hand-axe had taken to time to hit me in the back.

My health has dropped to yellow, I notice as the hand-axe tries to follow up with another attack, which I take a half-step backwards to narrowly avoid being hit by. I bring my right hand around to my left shoulder – whipping my rapier across their face in the process – as they try for another attack, but I am quicker. I step in close so that my right leg is next to their left and our knees touching, with my right hand I knock them to the side and hook my right leg around their left at the same time, making it impossible for them to recover. They hastily try to stand up again, but it's too late for them, I've put them out of their misery with a stab to the head.

I nearly fell forward As the dagger holder stabs me in the back. Again. I waste no time letting them know how much I appreciate their efforts and wish them well for their future endeavours by grabbing them by the hair (again) and ramming my knee into their face (again), but this time I don't let go. "That's ... the ... second... time... you... prick!" I grunt, emphasising each word with another knee to the face. "Ahh!" They groan as I assault them. I thrust them back and activate flame point and stab them four times, then, as the fire eats away at their dwindling supply of health points and sending them into the red section, I finish them off with straight strike. Five down, five to go.

The crowd lets out a great cheer and I stagger slightly, as if physically wounded by the noise. I had managed to re-enter the trance-like fighting state of mind at some point in the last two minutes, but this crowd was throwing me off, making it harder for me to think and act accordingly. Seeing me slightly off-balance and unprepared, the remaining battleaxe rushes in with a broad stroke. Unprepared, I manage to catch the blow on my bracers, taking minimal damage, but the momentum behind the attack is enough to throw me into the air. My agility stats kick in and I land on all fours in a very cat-like pose. The battleaxe continues their charge and I try to push off of the ground, but my foot slips on the sand and I hit the dirt, or stone, I should say, and get a mouthful of it (hmm... salty). Once again ignoring my sudden craving to eat, I desperately roll away from my assailant, only just avoiding an attack that buried the head of the axe in the ground where my head had been half a second earlier. I use the time they are distracted by their axe to regain my footing and quickly sidestep an attack from one of the sword wielders.

I activate longsword and jab at the battleaxe a couple of times until I have to catch the blade of a sword on my rapier's hilt and direct the opposing steel into the ground, after doing so I elbow the weapon's owner in the jaw and step away from them. The other sword rushes over and we have a short duel; a flurry of attacks, parries and blocks before I finally hit them with blade rain and eliminate them. The last sword dashes over and tries to hit me with two rapid strikes, but it only takes a backwards step to avoid them and it only takes a well-placed straight strike to end their resistance. The battleaxe charges at me again, weapon raised, but this time I charge back, forcing them to swing early, the momentum of their movement throwing them off balance. I step into their personal space and reach up for their head, which they naturally try to lean away from, and with momentum pulling them one way, and their body another, they fall to the ground in a heap without me having touched them. I am quick to put them down with a quick slice to the neck.

I approach the remaining two: Ereni and the broadsword. Ereni runs at me, seemingly unaware that this tactic has not turned up positive results for his comrades, but I don't want to fight him at the moment, so I deflect his attack easily, grab his right arm with my free left and kick his legs out from underneath him, forcing him to kneel. I then clap my hands around his head, one on each ear and he groans as his ears are filled with the sound of my hands hitting his flesh and he is stunned for a while. I kick him into the sand, and then frantically dodge the giant sword that just came my way.

Crap, my tripping strategies won't work on this person; they're too stable and their armour encases them like a full-body glove. The image of a tiny insect trying to kill a human comes to my mind, and as much as I dislike, it sums up this situation fairly well. I dodge another sweeping blow and run around them, I've already tried kick their legs out from underneath them, so I don't bother this time, I've worked out that they need something a bit more forceful... like severing the tendons behind the knee entirely, making it physically impossible for them to stand, don't hinder their ability to stand, take it away entirely! It takes a couple of minutes to get behind them again because they've become wary of me now, but I finally managed it by rolling between their legs and quickly cutting out at the backs of their knees, and they drop down onto one of them.

I need to finish this off quickly; Ereni is standing again and looking for an opening, I could just finish him off, but I want to dedicate time and effort to his humiliation. I can't find any more chinks in their armour, their chest plate overlaps itself to prevent as many gaps as it can, this is a common theme all over their body as well, all they have to do is keep their armpits from being exposed and protect their groin (which I think comes naturally to everyone). Damn, Ereni is circling around now. Oh well, I wasn't planning on letting Heathcliff – or anyone else for that matter – know that I have this move, but if it brings this fight to a swift end then I guess it's my optimal option. I bring both hands to my rapier's handle, bring the weapon back and the blade glows green and I release split lunge. I whip through my target and end up fifteen metres from where I started, rapier tip pointing directly up at the emperor's box, as if a direct challenge to Heathcliff himself.

"What the hell?!" Ereni exclaims, his voice echoing around the arena for all to hear as the crowd has gone dead silent. Funny, I thought that that move would have made them react the most, oh well, shows what I know about people. Ereni steps back as I look around at the crowd; it's almost as if they are in awe or fear. What's wrong? Why are you silent? You never hesitated to mess with my head before, why shut up now? "Are you not entertained?!" I yell at the top of my lungs. "Are you not entertained? Is this not what you are here to see?" I hear murmurs of confusion from the crowd.

"Don't worry, I watched that too." Ereni assures me and I turn my glare to him.

"Shut up, stop trying to make me like you." The two of us flip each other off at the same time until someone in the crowd yells at us. "Hurry the hell up!"

"Shut it, prick." Ereni and I yell in unison at the speaker before turning our hateful glares back to each other once more.

Our rapiers give off sparks as they meet in the space that separates us and creates a loud ringing that fills the arena like a flood. For five minutes we shuffle back and forth, each one trying to land a hit on the other, it was like we had an unspoken agreement to not use sword skills and to just rely on our own skills. Our opposing wills clashed as our blades did the same. "What's a little bitch like you doing here anyway?" I ask angrily, only further aggravating Ereni. "I volunteered to whoop your arse; no-one else had the dedication."

"Dedication? You haven't done anything up until now, you laze arse-hat."

"I wanted to be the one to end you after how much you've pissed me off."

"We have only met once before." I state, and Ereni only gets angrier.

"I know, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about you! I see you everywhere! I see you in everything! I hate you!"

"Something in that series of phrases doesn't match the rest." I mutter.

"AAAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!" Ereni roars and speeds up his attacks, a speed I match with ease.

"Our fight continued and I grew bored. "Okay, done with your crap." I say and step around Ereni and cut through his neck. The crowd went wild, those few that had bet on me celebrated as money flooded into their accounts, while those who hadn't made excuses loudly. The duel ended and everyone's health was restored to full once more and I walked towards the emperor's box.

Heathcliff, I expect to receive all that I fought for.

 **No, I could not resist a Gladiator reference.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the sixteenth chapter of Player Killer Killer! It took me a while to type this chapter despite knowing everything that I was going to write. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 16**

I exited the arena through the northern gate, directly below the emperor's box, where I was met by Heathcliff – who bore a neutral expression – and Domonic, who I'm glad to say looks thoroughly pissed off. "You fought well, Rin, almost suspiciously so." Heathcliff tells me when I stop before him and I raise an eyebrow at him. "You find it suspicious that I am better than nine of your best soldiers and Ereni." I state, completely unfazed by his accusation. "Now, if we are done with all the pointless pleasantries, I will be taking my map, and my freedom, and leaving."

"Why rush?" Heathcliff asks, obviously amused; I am starting to lose my patience.

"Why waste time in your presence?" I respond, I just came out of a ten-to-one fight, I am still in the mindset of attacking people regardless of whether it be physical or verbal. "Is there somewhere you have to be?" He asks.

"Yes."

"And where might that be?"

"Away from this sorry pit, now, you have five seconds to give me my map back, along with an apology, or I start telling everyone the leader of KOB cannot keep his word. Imagine the chaos." I threaten with an evil smirk. "Rin..."

"Five."

"Can we talk about this?"

"Three."

"What!?"

"One, the seconds go down with my patience."

"Fine, take it!" Heathcliff exclaims, suddenly exasperated, opening his inventory and handing me the map. I smile; I've found my target once more. Shadowmare had better be player killers, or else this was just one huge waste of my time.

"It's not nice to rob people, Heathcliff." I tell the leader of KOB with mock hurt, oh how the tables have turned. "It's really going to suck for you when the karma train rolls around and hits you like a... well, a train. But don't worry; I'll be there to laugh at you when it happens." I spin on the spot and walk away as I deliver this line and leave the room in silence. I walk out of the arena, avoiding crowds as much as I can; I just won a fight against terrible odds, so no doubt there's going to be people asking questions like 'what's your secret' and 'did you cheat,' or they might just ask some completely off-topic questions in the hope that I grace them with answers.

I've got to get back on the trail of Shadowmare; I'm tried for time as it is. I head to the centre of town as fast as I can without drawing attention to myself. From the centre of Grandzam, I teleport back down to floor twenty-three and look for a secluded place where I can look at the map, because chances are that Heathcliff isn't letting go of me just yet; I'm probably being followed by spies everywhere. However, despite all this, it is quite obvious that my business is on floor twenty-three, so to go somewhere else would be even more suspicious, so why bother hiding the floor I'm on?

If I'm looking for an area where I can be alone, I obviously can't do it in any of the towns; my earlier capture has me wary of that, so I head out of town and out into the wilderness. This world may be a game, but the situation is very real; I have to assume that any followers possess the cat's eye skill, or other tracking skills of which I am ignorant. The pursuers should know that I'm interested in Shadowmare as it was one of their own that told me, Manatu would have undoubtedly told them, so if I intend to mislead them, I should play the tune they expect me to perform before playing my own symphony. Yes, I will throw a spanner in the works, so to speak, maybe several... and possibly a screwdriver or... yes, a shovel, that'll be fun. I don't know how I'll do it, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I head down the path to Shadowmare HQ, first part should be easy, as both sides of this path are surrounded by relatively heavy forest growth. I speed up a little before breaking into a jog, and then abruptly jumping into the bushes on my right. Looking back on my actions, this may not have been the best idea I've ever had. You see, this variety of bush appears to be very prickly and harmful. I flail around for about a minute before grabbing the bush and tearing bits of it away so that I can escape its grasp. I stand up, brushing myself off as I do so and quickly hide the results of my surprise garden landscaping session inside the bush itself. My mind briefly compares my activity to hiding the shredded organs of someone I'd just killed inside the still-warm body, but I quickly discard the mildly disturbing thought.

I walk through the forest with no particular direction in mind; I weave around trees and cautiously avoid all bushes before breaking into a run and jumping up to grab a branch and hang from it, suspending myself above the ground. I struggle to pull myself up, but once I get my hips level with the branch, I switch my grip on the wood as push myself up to sit on the tree limb. I then stand up and walk to a more stable section of the branch, mush closer to the trunk.

The next five minutes are spent leaping from tree to tree, trying to put as much distance between me and the last place where my feet touched the ground. Of course, my footprints will still show on the branches where my feet have touched them, but I highly doubt that they will be found, however high doubt means that there is a small chance; I won't be satisfied until there is _no_ chance. I stop on a branch so that I can check my map. It turns out that this forest goes all the way to the edge of the map, so by crossing it I achieve... nothing... or so it would seem to any pursuers. I can use this to my advantage.

I jump through the trees for another ten minutes before I make a great leap into nothing and land on the grassy forest floor and start sprinting. I believe I've made it clear in the past that my speed and agility related stats are pretty much second to none, but with stats that high comes a challenge; using them. Prior to Sh- ... Shi- ... That thing that happened that ruined my mind, I had done a lot of practice, getting used to running through areas like this forest at high speeds without hitting anything (needless to say the practice itself brought pain in itself), so running in this environment is old news for me.

Even at the high speeds I move at, it still takes me an hour and a half to reach my destination. Where am I headed, I hear you ask? Simply put, the edge of the world. Each floor is made up of a circular landmass and encased by a wall stretching around its perimeter, I've heard that the walls are massive, which makes sense, but in the time I've spent in this game, I've never bothered to see them. The grass beneath my feet is a green blur as I pass over it with light steps, the trees around me appear as one at the edge of my vision, with only the ones directly in front of me being in focus. It was only when I noticed that there were no trees in front of me that I knew I had arrived and the sight of it hit me like a ton of bricks. Well, more accurately, I hit it like a fish being dropped in the floor. I groaned as I hit the ground and was dazed for a couple of seconds.

"Well this is larger than I expected." I mutter to myself. My plan is to see if I can get on top of the wall, because I figure that getting up there will be a pretty hard place to follow someone and I'm confident that I'm the only one who can do this. The question that needs to be answered, however, is how the hell am I supposed to get to the top of this thing? It's twenty metres high and made of (virtual) metal. Hmm... split lunge propels me fifteen metres in the direction my rapier points, and I've tested it before, it can go straight up. I examine the base of the wall; it meets the ground at a ninety degree angle (from what I can tell without a protractor), which will make this a little more difficult for me. Oh, did I forget to mention that I had an idea? Oh well.

Drawing my rapier I stand ten metres from the wall, take a deep breath in preparation, and then run full pelt at it. When I'm two metres away I leap off of one foot into the air and use the other foot to try and run up the wall. The first step works, but pushes me the slightest distance further away from the wall as I push off of it, angling my body to try and help, but the distance I was pushed away was enough so that my second step would miss the wall, with only the tip of my boot scraping against it. I bring my vacant hand to my rapier hilt and quickly activate and release split lunge, directing it up. Shoot skyward and when the glow resides from my weapon, I come face-to-face with the wall, I reach out in vain for something to hold onto, but the edge is metres away. "Aw." I mumble in the brief moment I was suspended in the air, and then gravity kicked in and I plummeted to the ground. I cushion my landing by spreading my feet and bending my knees as they hit the ground and transfer the fall into a backwards roll as my backside touches the grass.

"Well that didn't work." I state before observing my surroundings once more. The issue is that I can't get high enough, and in this situation, split lunge has a downside as it creates no momentum. In essence this means that I can't direct split lunge up and then rely on physics to carry me higher so that I can grab the ledge, instead it will be as if I were standing still in the air and I would simply fall. I spy a rather large tree nearby that I consider using to get height, but it is too far from the wall to be of any use to me, regardless of this I climb it and perch myself on a branch to ponder a solution.

I ponder for about... oh, seven seconds before I am forced to move lest my head be rendered from my body. Some giant worm thing had burst out of the ground, launching itself towards me with a loud screeching roar, and to avoid it I dismounted the tree branch with a severe lack of grace (okay fine; I fell) and landed headfirst on the ground. Great, so now not only do I have soiled pants, but I've also lost a portion of health for hitting my head on something hard.

I scramble to my feet and draw my rapier once more and crouch down into a position from which I can jump in any direction with ease and little notice. I can feel a gentle rumbling through my boots and intensifies rapidly and realisation hits me at that moment. "Nah mate, I've seen Jaws." I mutter and quickly jump to my left as whatever's attacking me explodes out of the ground where I had been standing not a second earlier. As it shoots up, I get a good look at it; black, segmented, elongated and cylindrical body, it has no head, just a mouth at the front of its body that spans the whole front end. I watch in terrified awe as it arcs through the air and dives back into the ground. During its brief time above ground, I saw its name tag, and while it lacks originality, it is fitting: death worm.

It seems familiar... oh right, they are relatively common monsters on floors forty to forty-three; they're one of the few monsters that appear on multiple floors. Man, clearing those floors was a pain, we had to get through them as quickly as possible, even now the only people on those floors is a guild dedicated to trying to wipe the death worms out. I believe we lost thirty people because of these bastards, this caused the guild 'Exterminators' to be formed, we know that it's possible to send a race of monsters extinct because there are now no boars on floor one because of us, so the goal of the Exterminators is to repeat that, except this time it will be intentional. But what the hell is one of them doing on the twenty-third floor?

I see the ground in front of me crack and I spin to the side to avoid being spear-tackled (or spear-chewed, more accurately) and quickly use straight strike and hit it in the side. Not only does straight strike provide a considerable amount of damage, but it also has a lot of force behind it, enough to knock most off of their feet, in fact, and certainly enough to knock this worm out of the air. The death worm writhes frantically on the ground, which I then pin it to by stabbing it through the body (in all honesty, the whole thing is pretty much a body with a mouth) I stab the end closer to its mouth to stop it from biting me.

Hmm, it's level thirty. Oh! Right, I see, the closer to the edge of a floor you get, the harder the enemies become, this makes more sense now, the ones on higher floors are between levels forty and forty-five (a _very_ considerable difference, let me assure you). I pull my rapier out and hold the blade behind my head with the point facing the ground and it glows red, activating a skill that applies to all weapons and cannot be disabled out switched out: execution. The sinister red glow flashes past my eyes as I bring the weapon down on my foe in an overhead arc and killing it instantly. I make sure to hit it towards the front of its body, because if you cut through it in the middle it will split into two separate beings. Let me tell you, when we first discovered that fact on the higher floors, heart attacks were had.

A shrill, drill-like cry fills my ears and I instinctively drop down to all fours as another death worm barrels through the air above me. Thankfully I hadn't calmed down yet, otherwise my pants would be... oh never mind; they're drenched. I look around to where the worm landed and I do not like what I see in the slightest. "Ah," I sneer "how nice of you to bring your friend... and their wife and kids... and the rest of your family... crap." My voice goes from hateful to desolate as I speak. I can count seven of them before me, so I may have played it up just a little bit. There is a period of total silence between the eight of us, it lasts for a couple of seconds before the air goes from still to desperate thrashing.

I leapt to the side as they all launched themselves at me in unison, each one missing and burrowing back into the ground, they holes they make magically filling in, illogical as it is, it ,means I don't have to worry so much as to where I put my feet. The next minute is filled with the death worms attacking me from every angle and me pulling off some break dance/limbo/gymnastic/spasmodic moves to avoid being eaten. In one of the brief seconds I have when I am not being attacked, I sprint over to the tree I had previously been sitting on and jump up to grab a branch and pull myself up. One of the worms tries to come up from below, but trees like this are immortal objects, so it hits the branch and fell to the ground, I smirk; glad that I'm not the only one running into things.

I sheathe my rapier; I haven't been using it and I need mobility over all else at the moment. However, I need a plan as much as I need mobility, I mean, I know the nature of a plan is to have everything that can possibly go wrong go wrong, but it's more for peace of mind. I can see the ground to my left cracking, as it is not coming from beneath, that means that the worm will have to come at me more horizontally. Balancing on my left, I bring my right foot up – I'm glad agility stats extend to flexibility, otherwise there's no way this could happen – higher than my shoulders. The worm attacks, arcing up to me, I op backwards so that the worm will miss and as it passes by me, I bring my heel down on it, smashing it straight down into the tree branch, stunning it in the process and it flops down to the grass. "Ah, good ol' axe-kick." I mutter despite this being the first time I've ever used it.

It hits the ground like a... I don't know, a severed tentacle or something, and I jump down as well and wrestle the worm like one might a crocodile (not something I'd recommend doing without the training I certainly haven't had). "Crikey!" I exclaim as it fights against me. Holding it down, I climb on top of it, ducking low to its body as one of its friends shoots overhead. I feel the ground rumble and I smirk, if this works I'm either a genius or idiot with ideas so stupid they work. The death worm attacking from below attacking from below shoots up to get me, however there is the worm I attacked between us. Unable to eat its brethren's scaly hide, it is simply pushed up with me on top. The worm is still trying to get me, so it keeps going up, serving only to push me further up. I'm ten metres from the wall, and fifteen in the air, I draw my rapier and use split lunge towards the edge of the wall.

My blade tastes the air above the wall and I fall, but not far as I am able to hold myself up with just my elbow before I bring my left arm up and I push against the wall and bring my torso up and roll up onto the top of the wall, panting as I do so. I just lie there, on top of the wall for a full minute before i start to laugh a laugh of disbelief.

I'm on top of the wall; try following me up here, Heathcliff.

 **I'll leave it up to you to decide whether he's a genius or an idiot.**


	17. Chapter 17

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the seventeenth chapter of Player Killer Killer. I am sorry for the amount of time it has taken for me to update, but a series of poorly timed events occurred in a short period of time and just got in my way and stopped me from writing. Anyway, the chapter's out now, so I may as well shut up and get on with it. I do not own Sword Art Online, I only own my OCs.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 17**

I had made it; I was on top of the wall. I got up off of my back and stood as the drill-like cries of the death worms that had been trying to kill me took on a tone of despair at their quarry having escaped. I started walking, following the direction of the wall along its ever-so-slight curve. On other floors, the curve of the wall is easy to see, but that's because they are smaller, I believe that floor twenty-five is the largest of them all, so twenty-three is still pretty damn huge.

I open up my inventory and pull up a hologram of the floor and take note of my location and direction. If I keep heading this way, I'll come to the top of a waterfall which has some caves behind it. Something flashes past my eyes and the hologram shivers as the same something passes through it. "Eh?" I close the map quickly and my hand finds my rapier's handle behind my right hip as I turn in the direction of where I think the projectile, which disappeared before I could identify what it was, came from. I don't see anything. My eyes scan left and right, but I see no sign of my assailant, only the empty yellow sky over the edge of the wall populated only by far-away clouds.

I slide my blade from its sheath on my lower back and hold its silver length before me, the tip catches the sun's light and reflects it onto something that creates a flash at the top of my field of view. I look up and see... something. It looks like it belongs in a sci-fi movie and not a fantasy RPG; it's metal and floating in the air, it is vaguely sphere shaped with a few bits sticking out of it. One of the aforementioned things appears to be a lens right in the middle, it also appears to have four small jets of blue flame burning on its lower half, they must be to keep it airborne. But possibly its most outstanding feature is the small, silver cylinder that pokes out of its grey body, it's a hollow tube that the interior of is glowing orange and is getting brighter. Now, I've seen Star Wars and Star Trek, I know that that light is a laser, and I know that lasers move at light speed, meaning that if I intend to dodge it, I should do so yesterday.

I shuffle backwards quickly as the laser is fired and the ground where I had just been gets singed. I look up at the thing again and see that it has a health bar, good, that means it can be killed. It identifies as a 'Moderator'; I've never heard of them before, but then again, I don't think anyone else has been on top of the walls before, so there wouldn't have been anyone else to spread the word about them. But what's this I see beside the name? Nope, no, not happening, no way José, nuh-uh, no way in hell, I think not. This thing is level one hundred. Holy. Crap. The holiest of craps, I can't fight this; I'm level seventy-six!

A computerised voice speaks to me. "Threat remains. Switching to lethal mode. Threat has ten seconds to remove itself from the wall before its demise." This thing may not be making loud noises, but I'm still pissing myself (metaphorically this time). "I-I'm not a threat, I'm just Rin!" I protest weakly, but I mentally kick myself and scream "RUN!" at my slow-to-respond body. I start sprinting, as I run, I pull an agility crystal out of my inventory, crush it in my hand, and my speed increases dramatically. My breathing comes out in heavy jolts as I thunder along the wall. I see more moderators emerging from the wall and I put even more effort into running.

I hear lasers firing all around me, but thankfully I'm being unpredictable enough with my changes in direction because they haven't hit me yet. During the very brief times that my feet spend on the ground as I run, I feel a rumbling go through the wall and the terrain ahead begins to change dramatically. By dramatically I mean a giant wall rising out of the surface of the wall (woah, wall-ception) to cut me off. It's a metre high, two metres now. I jump into the air and use split lunge to get past it before I'm cut off completely. Because split lunge brings me to a standstill, I have to desperately dodge about seven lasers before I can run properly again and I crush another agility crystal just to be safe. I can't hear all the moderator's computerised ultimatums over the sound of my own panting and... CRAP! A small rise appears in front of my toes as they touch the ground and I trip, airborne for a second, but I'm able to transfer the momentum into a forward roll and keep running with only a slight loss of pace.

Cubes varying in size rose from the ground as I ran, but I didn't even try to dodge or weave between them, no, instead I opted to jump on top of the nearest one and use it as a stepping stone to get on top of a larger one. A moderator flies dangerously close as I leap between cubes, I see it preparing to shoot and I swing around in mid-air and kick it away with as much force as I can muster. When I land I twist my ankle and fall sideways, just managing to stay conscious as my head is knocked on the edge of a cube and I hit the ground (of the wall, not the whole floor). I do a spasmodic crawl with both arms and one leg desperately as I try to get away. I manage to hop a couple of times before trying to use my twisted ankle again. It's hard, but not because of pain; there's no way to feel pain in this game, it's hard because of the reactions the game is making me have by stepping on the ankle in question. I have to take into account the half-falling thing I am made to do with every second step.

My running becomes a series of lunging steps as I try to avoid obstacles and being shot. A moderator rises from the ground directly in front of me and I bring my rapier back to use execution and slice through its body, cutting it in two and killing it, but I don't stick around to celebrate; I have to keep moving. The reason I used execution was because it is one of the two sword skills I possess that makes my weapon invincible for a short time (the other being split lunge), if I were to have used any other skill, my blade would surely break from trying to cut one of these metallic enemies, my rapier is also one-of-a-kind, so I try to take care of it. You can use execution with anything, even your hands, albeit less effective. My ankle is starting to feel a little better now, it's either healing already or I'm just getting used to nearly falling on my face with every step.

Using one of the larger cubes as cover, I open my inventory and hastily pull out an item labelled: Potion of Bodily Perfection. Now, I know that this sounds like a miracle cure for pimples and zits, but it's not (did you really think I'd be worried about my appearance at this moment?!). Health potion only restore hit points, they do not regenerate lost limbs or, in this case, sprains as a potion of bodily perfection does. With my foot in working order again, I commence running just as three lasers singe the spot I had just occupied. I can feel the wall starting to take on an incline and I briefly look over the edge of the wall and see a large lake with a waterfall coming from somewhere higher than my current altitude of about twenty-two metres.

The incline isn't steep, but it is intense enough for me to know that it's there and I crush yet another agility crystal and pick up the pace. If I wanted to be more conservative with my resources I would use a potion rather than a crystal because potions can be sipped at rather than used in one instant, however, potions are never as effective as crystals, and I have the small matter of survival on my mind over resource conservation at the moment. I weave between the cubes that rise from the ground and use split lunge to reach places before they get blocked off. I notice that the colour of the wall changing from light grey, to dark grey, to black as I progress. I look ahead and see that the terrain has become significantly more irregular; no longer is it wall and cubes popping out of the floor, it has changes to large rocks blocking my path.

They're fifty metres ahead, the first rocks, and this tells me two things: (1) I'm getting close to my destination and (2) that dodging these lasers is going to be a total bitch while climbing. I use split lunge to get on top of one of the smaller ones and my running changes to jumping as I leap from rock to rock, progressively getting higher and higher. The process of jumping and split lunging continues for a while, accompanied by the just-as-frequent frantic dodging of lasers. I use a smaller rock to vault up on top of a larger one, forward rolling to keep my speed. Back on my feet, I leap up to another rock, and then two more in quick succession following a vague zigzag pattern. I can see a small ledge jutting out of the wall, it is quite close to the waterfall itself and is about fifteen metres below where I am now and about thirty in front, I estimate that the wall's height at this point is about fifty to sixty metres above the floor. It had followed a slight incline earlier, but once it hit the rocks, it was a climb of at least thirty vertical metres. Anyway, the point is that I'm very high up, and I need to get to that ledge to get away from the moderators, but if I miss the ledge the fall could kill me, but if I can make it... well, I hope the moderators only chase me when I'm on the wall, not jumping off of it.

As I climb higher, aiming to drop right down to the ledge, I notice the rocks taking on a darker sheen that seems to reflect light. It must be from the waterfall's spray, I can't think of anything else that it could be, but all I know is that these rocks just got a lot harder to get any grip on. As I jump up onto another rock, one of the last ones I'll need to use, my foot slips upon landing and, still moving forward, I fall backwards. Instinctively, I reach back to break my fall and prevent my head from hitting the rock, but my left hand never touches the rock and I fall on an awkward angle. A warning symbol flashes before my eyes and I look at my left arm to find that I no longer have one from the elbow down, it's been shot off by a moderator! The edges of my field of vision pulsates an ominous red, the 'Severe Bleeding' de-buff flashing beside my health bar and I somehow leap from being on my back to my feet without losing my footing again.

Landing on the next rock, I slip again, but manage to put my right hand, still holding my rapier, out so that I have three usable limbs on the ground to stop my fall, and with a push I am back on my feet, but that doesn't last long. I sheathe my rapier just as the entirety of my right leg is shot off by another laser. I'm starting to think that this was maybe too far to go just to avoid being followed. "Crap!" I curse and pull myself towards the edge of the wall as my health bar rapidly declines into the yellow section. My head's over the edge, shoulders now, and with a great push I fall off of the wall.

I somehow flip in mid-air and land on my one good foot, jarring it, and falling on my back. I've made it onto the ledge, but I take no time to celebrate and I quickly procure another bodily perfection potion and my limbs regenerate in an instant. I take a moment just to breathe and try to calm down, looking at my health bar, deep in the red; I think it's at about fifteen percent of its maximum. Now that I'm able to relax, I take my time getting out a powerful health potion and drain about half of it in one drought and send my health back to green before stopping and slowly sipping at it. I sit with my back against the wall, coming to terms with what I had just survived.

"What are you doing here?" Someone asks and with a jolt, I turn to look at the speaker. They stand five metres away, a two metre long lance in their hands. I quickly drain the rest of my potion and stand, my right hand falling to my rapier handle as I do so. "What's it to you?" I reply cautiously.

"You can't be here." They say matter-of-factly. Hmm, this person's voice is pissing me off, they sound like the kind of person who tells others that they can't do things a lot and enjoys doing so. "Well that's unfortunate." I respond.

"I'm serious, get lost." They brandish their weapon up in my face and I gently push it aside with the back of my left hand and step closer to them. "I believe I have some questions for you." I mutter to myself before speaking up. "Tell me, which guild are you with?" I question as they back away to keep me at the lance's point. "What's going on here? Tell me, if I can't be here why can you?" I ask. "Answer me..." I pause briefly to read their username and read out what I see "...A$$$layer420." Wow, they did not think through what name they would go by for more than a year. "Shut it! I don't answer to you! Now scram!" They say threateningly, and with a hint of hurt in there as well (I sense someone who knows they made a bad decision). "How amusing" I tease "see, I don't answer to you, so it appears we have reached an impasse."

"An impasse, you say? I think not; I've got orders to follow, and as per those orders, I'm going to kill you now." They tell me, raising their lance again. Something in what they say clicks in my mind, awakening something that had previously been asleep, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the rhyme that roused it. "You're going to kill me, eh? Well you are certainly most welcome to try." I mutter, a small yet cruel smile creeping onto my face. "What, you think I've never killed someone before? You think I can't do it?" There is silence between the two of us, neither moving. "Are you prepared to die?" I ask quietly, taking another step closer to them. "Surely you are if you are prepared to kill. Tell me, are you truly ready?" I hold up a hand to their face, pointing my index finger between their eyes. "You who would take a life so flippantly and with so little regard, can you face the price of murder?" They grit their teeth and tighten their grip on their lance. "Get back!" They exclaim, but I do not obey.

I push the tip of the lance into the ground and raise my left leg and use my foot to stomp down on the lance and trap it between the foot and the rocky ground. I punch them in the gut before they can react and push them up against the stony wall, drawing my rapier in the process and holding it to their throat. "You will answer my questions truthfully and completely." I tell them. They keep struggling to escape my grip, they take a breath to shout, but I ram my knee into their stomach, forcing them to cough violently. "Which guild are you with?" I ask.

"Knights of the Dark." They spit out.

"Why are you here? What are you guarding?" I interrogate roughly.

"Meeting."

"Tell me more or your head rolls." I threaten, pushing harder against them.

"There are three guilds meeting inside." They tell me, refusing to say more.

"That's it, you're dead." I say, rearing my blade back to stab.

"Don't! I'll talk! The Knights of the Dark are meeting Shadowmare and..." Oh-ho! Now this is a lucky find. "Who is the third? Final chance." I warn.

"Laughing Coffin."

There is silence between us for about ten seconds. "You see now? You're in way over your head. If you let me go and walk away now, I won't tell them and you can live... Rin." My shoulders shake uncontrollably and I hold my informant to the wall. "Ah, did I say too much? Are you crying?" They ask, suddenly feeling gung-ho. They think they're safe now, until I force them against the wall harder than ever before with a low chuckle. My laughter slowly intensifies, getting faster and louder until it abruptly stops and there is silence once more.

"Perfect." I whisper. "What were the odds that I'd strike gold right off the bat? This is almost fictional!" "W-what?!"

"Now, if Laughing Coffin are meeting with two other guilds and not killing them, it stands to reason that the two other guilds also share the same interests. This would mean that all three guilds inside are all player killing guilds, and you, as a member of one of those three guilds, makes you guilty, or at least an accomplice, of murder, now doesn't it?"

"H-hey, what's wrong with you?!"

"A lot of things and it's you kind's fault." I snap. "Now, as I was saying, you are at least an accomplice... Ah, but earlier you already admitted to murder, didn't you? Yes, yes, so that would make you GUILTY!" I say, my voice slowly gains volume and conviction.

"P-please don't kill me!"

"Cry me a river and see if I sail down it." I say, cutting away their remnants of hope. With a quick stab to their throat they shatter into red polygons that shatter in turn into nothing, leaving, me alone on the ledge with only the sound of the waterfall for company.

I walk along the ledge until I come to stand in front of a cave opening obscured from the outside by the waterfall. My player marker changes to a sinister red colour as I look into the dark cave. I feel surprisingly calm, my heart rate is normal and i feel no confusion or ignorance towards what i am about to do.

It's execution time.


	18. Chapter 18

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the eighteenth chapter of Player Killer Killer. It took me a while to draft and type up this chapter, but it's here now, and hopefully the wait between this one and the next won't be too long because I already have a draft of it. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy, and feel free to leave a review!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 18**

Only the sound of water dripping from the stalactites on the ceiling, dripping into puddles on the floor, made a noise as I carefully navigated its badly-lit path. Rapier in hand, the blade of which occasionally glinted as it reflected what little light there was, my feet make no noise as they touch the slippery ground, my boots distorting the otherwise mirror-like flats of the water with ripples. I can see a light up ahead that looks like it's coming from a flaming torch. I can hear voices, but not the words they are saying.

Crouching behind a rock, I observe the small scene before me. There are two players who are not really paying attention to anything, their player markers are both yellow. There is a circular table and two chairs; one of the players is sitting down while the other is leaning against the wall opposite them. This little set-up of theirs is lit by two torches hanging in brackets on the walls, I can see past them and the path, which is more like a corridor, really, is lit by identical torches at regular intervals.

"Urgh," one of them groans "how did we get lumped with sentry duty?" The other player, sitting in the chair, regards his friend with an air of disdain and sighs. "Oh shut up, it's your fault for saying that no-one would find us." They scold and the first player mutters something incoherent, but they are clearly annoyed. After about thirty seconds of silence, the first one speaks up again. "Do you reckon Layer's as bored as us right now?"

"Who the hell is 'Layer'?" The second asks, no clue where the conversation is headed.

"The gut out the front," the first explains "I don't know how to say his username. How do you pronounce a dollar sign? And do you say four-twenty, four-hundred-and-twenty or four-two-zero?"

"Dunno," the second player admits "could by forty-two-zero." I decide that it's time I stop hiding.

"I believe it's pronounced 'dead body.'" I say as I step out from behind the rock and approach the pair.

"Huh, that's a unique- holy crap, who are you?" The first one asks, abruptly changing their train of thought. "Yeah," the seconds agrees, standing up "and how did you get past dead body?" The first looks at the second incredulously. "You say it like that too?" The second shrugs.

"I will from now on; that's the best thing I've heard all week." ...This did not go the way that I had expected it to go. "Are you with Laughing Coffin? We were told to expect a few of you guys to be late, walk right in." The second continues. Why are they suddenly so relaxed?! I just- oh I see, I'm a _red_ player now, at the moment that'd be considered normal. I'm not affiliated with a guild, so they think that I'm a part of the not-officially recognised Laughing Coffin. They think that I'm one of them.

"Hey, are you alright?" The first asks, stepping closer and I realise that I've been silent for the past twenty seconds and the first one grabs my shoulder. "If you're not feeling well-" They start, but never finish, with a quick flicking motion I cut their arm off, and then swiftly whip my blade around and bring the tip of my rapier across their neck. "Don't touch me." I mutter darkly as the sound of shattering glass echoes throughout the cavern lightly. I step through the shower of red and approach the remaining player. "W-what the hell, man? We're on the same side!" They exclaim, backing away.

"If we are on the same side," I ask "then what need have you to retreat?" They grit their teeth defiantly, reaching over to the table, on its top lies a tomahawk. "If it's a fight you want, it's a-" I jab my blade under their chin, forcing the metal through them until the hilt touches their Adam's apple, and they too shatter to pieces. "They were not ready to die." I murmur to myself, observing my weapon of murder, turning it slightly as I do so. "Oh well."

I proceed down the fire-lit path, there are no puddles on the ground anymore and the only sound that can be heard is the quiet crackling of the torches. I feel something growing inside me, a strange feeling... uh-oh, I feel-... I drop to my knees, there's a pounding in my head, like a drum on a boat telling slaves to row. I can't hear the torches anymore, only the sound of water boiling. "Yeeeeeeeeeessssssss..." Holy crap, is that _my_ voice?! "Three have fallen by my hand... more... more must follow..." It sounds angry and strained, like it's fighting something, but what? I have heard this voice before, but only in my head, it's the one that tells me to kill useless people. I don't know why I keep it around, it's like I know that it's wrong to kill anyone, but I don't disagree with what it's saying. Sitting up, I shakingly bring my rapier up before my eyes, strange, I can see blood on the hilt, the blade, and on my hand, weird; there's no blood in SAO. My breathing quickens and my eyes widen, I jump to my feet. "Mooooooooore..." I whisper intensely, I take a couple of steps and then... something.

I suddenly feel normal again, there's no blood anywhere and all is quiet. I straighten up, my desire to kill is not sated, but it feels more under control, as if calmed by a tranquiliser dart that only made it drowsy. I shake my head vigorously; I'm getting sick of these insanity-like attacks. I continue walking, following the path around a corner and find myself standing at the entrance to a large circular place. I'm at the top of a path that leads down, following the shape of the room, at the bottom there appears to be a lake that drains off somewhere back in the direction I came from (except lower, obviously) and is being filled up by a small waterfall that comes through a hole in the roof. Down the bottom there is also a large collection of tables and benches and the whole room is lit by the sunlight that pours through the hole in the roof along with the water, the light being refracted by the water and creating mesmerising patterns on the rocky walls.

I tread down the path at a relatively slow pace, so that I attract as little attention as someone with a drawn weapon can. "Hey! What are you doing here?" Someone asks, there are three people approaching my, one with a sword, another with a dagger, and the third clearly doesn't plan on fighting because they have a clipboard. "Rin?" One of them queries when they get close.

"I don't see a Rin on my list." The one with the clipboard informs the other two.

"How did you get in here?" The sword-wielder asks, stepping closer. In answer, I slash my blade across them, from right hip to left shoulder, and then again from just below the ribs to their currently undamaged other shoulder, creating an uneven 'X' shape on their torso. "Crap." They mutter and take a swing at me, but I catch the blow on my rapier's hilt and slide my longer, thinner blade along their, creating a small shower of sparks, until our hilts are touching. From there I swipe out and cut off their head, which splinters off into millions of pieces as it hits the ground. I keep walking; I had never stopped moving in the first place.

"Woah, woah, woah! Calm down! No-one else needs to die!" The clipboard holder exclaims, half backing up their friend and half scampering away. "Yeah, what do you want? I'm sure we can get you what you want, now calm down!" The one with the dagger says; I've decided that they sound annoyed more than anything else. "Well, for your information," I respond "I don't think I've ever been calmer, and as for what I want..." I pause as I feign a strike at the dagger wielder's body, and then use the hilt to hit them in the head. They stagger backwards and I use execution to finish them off. "...I want your lives." The clipboard holder curses and bolts away, but it's a matter of seconds before I catch up and stab them through the back of the head.

I keep walking down the pathway; ahead I can see a group accumulating to block my path of destruction. Of course, if I really wanted to, I could just jump to the bottom floor from here. I stop walking twenty metres before the front line of the group, which has become at least fifteen strong. A glint of light catches my eye and just as I recognise what it is, it hits me in the centre of my chest: a poisoned dart. It doesn't reach very deep or do much damage, but it does paralyse me. Someone laughs and the group advances, fanning out to form a semicircle before me, a woman steps forward, presumably the one who threw the dart, glee written all over her face.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" She asks tauntingly, tossing another dart up into the air and catching it. "Poor alliteration." I mutter to myself as she stands in front of me, bending over to look at me face to face. "A hero, huh? People like you are the most fun to break." She teases.

"A hero, you say?" I reply. "How boring, I could never be such a good-goody." She smirks at this.

"Is that right? Well after what you've just done, you don't fit in here either."

"Oh, I'm well aware of that," I say as she walks around me, observing me from all angles "but see, I wasn't trying to fit in, in fact, I was succeeding towards my goal."

"Mmhm, right. So can you tell me what you're trying to do, or do you like to think of yourself as a dark, mysterious individual?" I let out a low chuckle when she says this.

"Oh, okay. Listen up; you'll want to hear this." I tell her.

I chop her in the neck with my left hand and elbow her in the head before she can react, knocking her back. "First of all, paralysed people can't talk." I say with a grim smile and kick her in the stomach, just as all the other players start to act in response. I take a two-step run-up and jump, grabbing her throat with my left hand, my momentum throwing the both of us over the edge of the path and into the air. I use her body as a cushion for my own as we hit the ground while still holding her throat. She takes a lot of damage from the fall, but not enough to kill her. "Until quite recently I was a front-line player, meaning that I could go up to the highest unlocked floor right now and fight with only minor difficulty, think of this before you think that you have a chance against me." I tell her and her eyes widen with surprise... or possibly desperation because I'm stopping her from breathing, could be either (but I like to think that it was surprise). "Also, are you familiar with floors thirty-two to thirty-four? If you are, you'd know that the monsters there attack with a wide variety of poisons, like the one you just used to paralyse me. But after a time, one develops a resistance." I pause to let this sink in. "You paralysed me for one-and-a-half seconds. If you intend to kill me or any other front-liners, you'd need to increase the potency at least twenty times over." As I say these words, her health depletes to zero due to asphyxiation and I stand up as her being breaks into red. "Seven." I mutter to myself.

I look around; the rest of the group is still up on the path and currently running down it. I'm standing next to all the water that has pooled up from the internal waterfall. I can see across the room and there is a tunnel through which the pool empties into. Standing out the front of the tunnel's entrance is a large group of people, of them; three are very noticeable because they're barking out orders. I take it these three are the leaders of Shadowmare, Knights of the Dark and Laughing Coffin, so to kill them would be like... bonus points. I decide to make those three people my top priority and I run around the pool to get to them, but first I have to get through the sea of tables and benches. Ignoring the benches entirely, I leap up onto the nearest table and leap between tables to get to the other side as quickly as possible.

My targets run into the tunnel, followed by a large number of their subordinates; that said there are still plenty of them blocking my pursuit. I charge full-pelt at the group ahead of me. "Crap." One of them mutters, raising their shield. I jump up, planting my foot on their elevated shield and use it as a launch-pad to get up even higher over everyone's heads. As I drop down, I step on someone's head, using it as a stepping stone to get to the other side of the crowd. I crouch low as I hit the rocky ground, which is up to my knees in water, and take off down the poorly-lit tunnel as their cries of alarm echo in my wake.

I sprint for about thirty seconds before I come to a fork in the path, and without thinking I go down the path to the right. It doesn't take me long to realise that this path is a dead end, I've reached a circular room now, there isn't any water here and there wasn't any on the path leading here, so that should've told me that there was no escape here. The room is filled with crates and a couple of chairs, there is a table with a collection of low-level swords on it and a chest right next to it. Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the room is the woman hanging from the wall by her wrists. "Crap." I mutter and jump behind a stack of crates as I hear voices getting louder outside the room. The woman is watching me and I bring my index finger to my lips in a silent message: _you saw nothing_. She huffs angrily, but looks away.

I can hear shouting and heavy footsteps mixed in with clinking armour and weapons. About five people barge into the room and start looking around. "Did you see anyone come in here?" One of them asks the woman on the wall, who simply huffs angrily (again) in reply, but otherwise remains close-mouthed. I can hear the player killers starting to shuffle around and I back down further into my hiding spot. I can see the shadow of someone nearby, they're going to look around the crates and see me, I can feel it; it is almost as if it has already happened. As their head pokes around into my view, I raise my weapon, so that the blade is right between their eyes, making them stare down its length. I give them the same message I gave the woman earlier and they back away, wide-eyed. "There's no-one here." They tell the rest of the small group. "Right," their leader says "Let's go catch up with the others." And with that, all five of them left.

I stepped out of my hiding spot and stand in the centre of the room, facing the woman. "Thank you." I tell her with an awkward combination of nod and bow. I turn to leave and she clears her throat painfully loudly. "Aren't you going to free me?" She asks and I turn around.

"Ummm... well... uhh, I hadn't _really_ planned on it...um, excuse my bluntness but... why?" I struggle to say, if you can't already tell, I _really_ want to leave right now. "Is that not what you were sent here to do?" She questions and I am a little taken aback. "Look, thanks for your help, but I'm not sure I want to free someone with such self-entitlement." I reply, my usual snarkiness creeping back into my voice, I see her grit her teeth. "Okay, I'm sorry. It's just that they've been... torturing me... I want to get out of here." She replies, her voice started out strong, but degraded to little more than muttering towards the end. "Torture?" I ask; my interest piqued. "What did they do?" You can't feel pain in SAO, so I'm curious to know how they are inflicting pain. "They would hit me and poison me until my health was low... I thought that I was going to die... constantly. But they never killed me; they left me on the brink of death... always." She explains and I can hear the pain in her voice, the mental suffering she's been through in her words. "I don't want to die... please... get me out of here." She pleads and I sigh, but for once it's not an annoyed sigh, it's a sympathetic one. "Alright, hold still." I say, approaching her.

Cutting her down was a simple matter of damaging her metal clasps enough to make them break and she dropped to the ground, she staggered a bit, but was otherwise okay. "So," she starts "why are they after you?"

"Yeah well, you see... I'm the instigator here." I tell her. "I killed some of them earlier." She looks down at me with disdain. "How many is 'some'?"

"Seven." I admit.

"You are aware that killing four in a day people is considered a mass murder, right?"

"Oh please, I'm not doing it for the achievement."

"It wasn't a compliment."

"Oh." I mutter.

"So how do I know that you won't add me to your count?" She asks my dryly and I consider this for a moment. "Okay, yes, I came here – well, I fell really, but that's a long story – but I'm here to kill player killers, not just any old person. Also, I'm not..." I pause to think back on recent event before proceeding "...overly insane. I don't just slaughter everyone around me for kicks." I explain.

"Right."

"Well, I must be off, so good day to you, goodbye." I say and start to walk away briskly, but she stops me. "Hey!" She calls out, putting her hand on my shoulder. Bare shoulder. Her hand. Touching. People. I jump away and hiss viciously, the noise is very akin to the one a cat might make after having its tail pulled. "Woah, what is with you?" She exclaims and my face flushes, I try to form the words to explain, but I can't say them; they won't come to me. I grit my teeth and look away angrily, and then I run off.

My light footsteps echo throughout the tunnel faintly, I'm running along one of the higher-up edges of the tunnel so that the ankle-deep water doesn't announce my presence. The path gradually descends, after a minute I hear a booming explosion of water, it's coming from up ahead, but nothing in the tunnel changes, so I disregard it for the moment. I can see the tunnel coming to an end, so I slow to a walk. I stop just before the end and look into the next area. There's a large hole in the roof that is letting lots of natural light in, and if I follow the path of the water, I'll reach a large, shallow lake, but if I go to the left, a rocky path rises above the water level and follows a curve that ends about twenty metres above the centre of the lake. I can see that lots of players are on the path and a small army of them litter the lake, just at the base of the cliff that the end of the path creates.

Some novice trapper has placed a tripwire twenty centimetres above the ground and I step over it easily and exit the tunnel. "Crap, he's here!" I hear someone call as I step up to walk up the path.

"Let him through!" A voice booms, echoing over everyone's heads and the player killers on the path move to the edges, allowing me a clear view of a small group of people standing at the top of the path and I start walking to them.

I hear footsteps behind me and I turn on the spot, rapier half-raised in preparation. "What the hell is she doing here?" I mutter to myself as I see the woman I freed earlier (I should probably learn her name) comes running towards me. When she'd been chained up, she'd been in the default set of clothing, but now she was wearing light armour and holding a small shield and a sword that I estimate was procured around floor twenty-nine and would be considered standard-issue there; it's not a bad weapon, but it's not... particularly good either. "Don't you dare to ever run off like that again." She tells me forcefully when she gets closer and I duck as she tried to slap me. She's rathe tall, I'm not; I don't have to duck very low. "What the hell are you doing here? Why didn't you escape?" I ask her, looking up at her name tag, her name is Marine (given that SAO is only in Japan, I'll assume that it's pronounced 'Mari-neh', rather than the kind of soldier). "I still have questions that I want you to answer." She says adamantly and I sigh. "Fine, I promise you I'll answer your questions... if I feel like it." I tell her, not waiting for a response and continue walking, I hear her 'tch' irritably as she runs to catch up with me.

"Well, this _is_ a fine rescue, now isn't it?" One of the members of the group says to me when I reach the top with Marine. The path ends with a flat, oval shape that is ten metres wide and twenty-five long, the path that the player killers passed to make ends just before the oval starts and they've filled in to block any escape attempt. "Well, it was supposed to be me slaughtering you lot, but it has turned into a rescue." I reply.

"Wow, romantic." Marine mutters with copious amounts of sarcasm in her tone.

"Hands off, I belong to me." I snap to her in the same manner and then speak up to the group ahead. "Anyway, so I'll be leaving with her, and then I'll be back to annihilate you guys, so if y'all could stay cool, calm and still, I'll-" I explain, but I am cut off.

"You won't leave this place." The same person who spoke before tells me.

"Is that a threat?" I ask and I see them smile.

"No, it's a-"

"Shut up and fight me already." I snap over them, and then say in a calmer tone: "Not nice to be interrupted, is it?"

"Stay here." I tell Marine and step forward, as does the self-proclaimed spokesperson of the group. We stand ten metres apart, able to see each other's name tags now, and I don't know what kind of punk-arse name 'PoH' is, but he's got it. He looks a bit like a tramp, I mean, has he equipped the rag shawl item _on purpose?_ He's holding a (yuck) mace, but I think the capitalisation in his name is pissing me off more (and he shall hence be known as 'Poh'). "Wait, Rin? I thought you were dead!" Poh exclaims.

"Surprise! Um, come again?"

"Gah, never mind, I'll just kill you now."

"No, really, I insist," I say, crouching to run, launching off and closing the distance between us in a second, Poh gasps in surprise as I stand next to him "talk."


	19. Chapter 19

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the nineteenth chapter of Player Killer Killer! As promised, I managed to post this chapter (relatively) close to the previous one. I do not own SAO or any of the characters, I only own my OCs.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 19**

It's funny how displays of power make people suddenly want to open up about themselves and their murder plots that failed. "Crap. Very well, then." Poh concedes. "It was after the clearing of the fifty-fourth floor."

"Ah, good memories." I say, reminiscing, there's a very particular reason that that time was so good for me. "It was after you killed the boss on that floor and didn't stick around; you left with Shiniki." Poh says and my right eye twitches violently. "I'm gonna stop you right there, see, gutter-scum like you aren't fit to even say his username, so for that, an arm." I tell Poh.

"What?!" He yells in confusion as I sever his left arm and it explodes into red triangles.

"Let's not repeat that mistake again, eh? Now, continue."

"Tch," Poh curses, quickly consuming a potion of bodily perfection "you left with the reward, the Marmatrix."

"Oh yeah, this old thing." I say, holding my rapier, the Marmatrix, before me. "Weird name though; it has nothing to do with Marmite, the Matrix trilogy, or the mathematical concept of matrices." I say the last part with a slight shudder. "How can you be so flippant? That rapier is the key to a treasure trove on floor fifty-five!"

"Yeah, I know. The 'trove' was a disappointment, really, the money was nice, but all the items were 'meh.'" I tell Poh offhandedly. "Anyway, back to killing me."

"We wanted the Marmatrix, but it would seem that we killed Sh-" Poh stops himself, remembering what happened about thirty seconds ago "your friend when we tried to rob and kill you."

A wide, not-entirely-healthy grin splits my face in two and I chuckle, it grows into an all-out laugh, it lasts for a good minute before I calm down. "That's not funny, but it explains a lot." I mutter. "So how do you know all of this? Who are you? Second-in-command of Shadowmare? Rank and file of Knights of the Dark?" I ask.

"I am the leader of Laughing Coffin," Poh tells me "I ordered your death."

"Well then, Mr. King-scum-bucket-and-proud-of-it, I'd like to thank you for my very questionable mental state, and on behalf of that mental state, I bid you death."

In hindsight, I admit that an attack straight for the neck in this kind of situation was predictable, but it still pissed me off that I missed. I easily lean away as Poh swings his mace at me. "You are at an extreme disadvantage here, you realise." I tell Poh, who chuckles briefly.

"You're not the one surrounded by followers." He says gleefully and I curse beneath my breath as I hear Marine call out. "Riiiiin! They're attacking me!"

"Then fight back! I'm in the middle of something!" I yell back at her.

"Rin!" Marine cries out, her tone sounds more like that of an angry mother.

"Urgh, fiiiiine." I groan. "So sorry, I execute you later." I inform Poh, genuinely disappointed, and I run beck to Marine. "Boom, enter the five-foot-giant." I mutter unenthusiastically as I arrive at Marine's side and all her attackers back away as quickly as they can, as if I had fired a blank at a group of pigeons, I make a couple of slashes until I hear Marine scream.

"What the hell now?" I roar, turning around irritably. Poh's holding Marine in a headlock now and is dragging her away. "That, apparently." I mutter in answer to my own question. "Oh how very original." I say, speaking up this time. "If you keep fighting, I'll kill her." Poh responds, the temptation to repeat myself is gnawing at my soul, but I decide on something more effective. "Go on then, kill her, she's a bit of a self-entitled bitch anyway." I say and Poh is stunned (unfortunately not literally).

"Does she really mean that little t- actually, we noticed that too." He admits and Marine cleared her throat loudly. "Oh shut up, the big boys are talking." Poh snaps at her, then one of Poh's subordinates clears her throat just as loudly and Poh sighs, exasperated. "Yes Janice, I know, urgh. Fine then, the big people are talking. Happy?! You can't satisfy anyone these days." I clear my throat loudly and he turns on me. "What now?! Is it because you're short?"

"No, it was just my turn." I inform him.

"What?"

"And there goes your guard!" I yell, running at him.

I use split lunge, but Poh's already backing away, he drops Marine in surprise as I cover the distance between us in an instant, my blade occupying the space where his head had previously been. He staggers backwards, scampering away desperately. "Get him me-" He starts, but then after glaring pointedly at Janice, he changes what he's saying "people!" He corrects himself.

"Oh crap." I mutter as I see at least ten people pull darts out from their pockets and otherwise readying themselves. I drop to my knees to avoid three darts, and then quickly roll to the side to dodge another two. I don't where the other guys threw their darts, but they nevertheless missed. Regaining my feet, I sprint at my assailants, pulling my rapier back, I use straight strike on one of them, the impact throwing them off the edge and down into the lake below. A couple of other Laughing Coffin members jump down as well, without any input on my behalf.

Janice goes to throw a dart at me, but I bring my weapon up to block it. The Marmatrix's hilt is quite intricate; it looks delicate and is composed of strands of metal. Once the dart passes through one of the holes in the hilt, it's a simple matter of quickly twisting the sword to pull the dart off-course and to a complete start. I lightly pick the poisoned dart out of the hilt and offer it to Janice. "I believe this is yours." She curses and jumps off the edge along with the remainder of the LC forces.

"Marine! What are you doing?" I yell as Marine runs over to me.

"Trying not to get killed!" She replies, her health is in the yellow section.

"Geez, take this-" I tell her, handing her a health crystal "- and tell me, what level are you?" I know that she was being attacked by multiple people, but she shouldn't have lost this much health in the short time that's passed. "It's rude to ask a woman that." She huffs.

"Okay, two things: one, are you seriously giving me that crap right now; and two, in this age of equality and feminism, I should be able to ask what I want."

"Fine, it's thirty-seven." She concedes.

"Not going to cut it." I mutter, annoyed, but this does explain why she didn't want to tell me.

"What are we going to do now, Rin?" She asks desperately.

"Jump." I tell her simply.

"What?!"

"I refuse to repeat myself." I say, jumping over the edge and down into the lake.

"I hate you!" Marine calls out as she jumps after me.

"Oh well, join the club." I mutter offhandedly as I land with a splash in thigh-deep water.

I'm thigh-deep in the water, meaning that everyone else is knee- to shin- deep (*sigh*) and the player killers are spread out all around me. Marine falls without grace in the water, but quickly stands up and readies herself for the zero fighting I am about to let her do, I mean, we've been trapped in this game for over a year, _how_ are you not about level fifty? I know that I'm a front-line player, so I'm supposed to be high-level, but what have you been doing to still be level thirty-seven? More importantly, what haven't you been doing? "One minute, Poh." Someone says and Poh nods to them.

"Thank you Rivan, now all we have to do is survive." He replies. Did I hear him correctly? Did he say Rivan? He's a part of Laughing Coffin? Hmm, maybe he serves as a go-between for Shadowmare and LC. I wonder how Manatu found out about him. Oh well, I'm still in the middle of a fight, so I'll contemplate this later.

Disregarding Rivan, did he say one minute? One minute to what? "Guess what, Rin." Poh says tauntingly, making sure that there is a large distance between the two of us. "Ooh, a distracting guessing game, I love those. Alright then, what?"

"Do you know what we are standing on? What we are standing in?"

"Thirty seconds." Rivan interrupts and Poh smiles.

"Water? Rocks? Coded materials? Ones and zeroes?" I guess rapidly. "Water stained with your filth?"

"No we – well that was rude – no, we are standing on something much more exciting than those. Especially that last one."

"Fifteen seconds."

"Okay, I'm done caring, death time." I snap, using split lunge and stabbing someone through the head, their polygons shatter with a light-hearted sound for such a heavy loss. "Ten seconds."

"Holy crap, what _is_ that move?" Poh spits out in surprise. "It doesn't matter, I'll be gone soon."

"Five." Rivan says, counting down as I dodge more darts. "Four." I lean back to evade three coming from the side. "Three." I widen my stance and lean backwards as one whistles overhead. "Two." I try to jump, but the water messes me up and three darts hit my leg. I'm paralysed. "One."

Everything explodes. Okay, not quite everything, but it feels like it did. The water we'd been in had been bubbling for some time now (something I'd failed to notice) and now it shot up. We had been standing on a geyser (I was under the impression that geysers were deeper, but oh well, it is a fantasy RPG). "What manner of plot convenience...?!" I yell incredulously and I shoot up, propelled by the water and everyone in that section of the water flies through the large hole in the ceiling. Well, almost everyone; being at the edge of the explosion, my head gets knocked on one of the ceiling's rocks and I start flipping wildly as I fly out the roof. "Urgh." I moan as the combination of the impact and vertigo knocks me out.


	20. Chapter 20

**Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 20**

"Urgh." I groan, opening my eyes slowly and sitting up. I check my surroundings: trees; grass; and a small campfire crackling away about a metre's distance from where I lie. It's night-time and all is silent except for the fire. "Oh good, you're awake." I hear someone say and I jump to my feet, checking my hip... good, the Marmatrix is still there. "There's no need to be so uptight, it's only me." I see Marine standing a couple of metres away. "I see. Where are we?" I ask, regaining composure and trying to get a grasp on the situation.

"When the geyser went off, you were knocked out by something or other." Marine tells me "When we hit the water I got to your body before anyone else could and swum away."

"Oh... well, thank you." I say a little awkwardly, it can be slightly disturbing to hear about other people handling your body when you yourself are not aware of them. "Um, isn't it hard to swim in armour?"

"It is, but we weren't terribly far from the shore, also, I'm a good swimmer." She adds the last pert with a proud smirk. "Well... that's fortunate."

"So, Rin, what do you intend to do now?" Marine asks me and I pause to think.

"Well, I don't want to risk being seen with a red marker, so I'll probably stay in this area for the next week and wait it out." I reply, opening my inventory to check my resources. Hmm, I'm going to need more food. "Marine, what items do you have?" I ask and she sniggers with grim humour.

"I have nothing except for what I'm wearing, a sword and a shield, everything else was stolen when I was captured." She informs me and, after a moment's thought, I come to a decision.

"Alright, well, here's two health potions, for gradual use, a crystal, for a crisis, an agility crystal, 'cause you never know, and some jerky." I say, rattling off this list of items as I hand them to her from my inventory, she looks stunned. "Um... wow. I didn't know you were this nice... or nice at all, for that matter." She tells me and I fail to stop my cheeks gaining a pinkish hue.

"I have my moments." I mutter, I've never really known how to take compliments... or backhanded ones while we're on the topic. "What kind of jerky is it?" She asks, snapping me from my thoughts.

"Um, bear, I believe... that's okay, right?"

"Yeah, thanks." She responds gratefully.

"Marine, are you in a guild?" I ask after five minutes of calm silence and she nods her head in reply.

"Yes, I'm in Angelic Light." She tells me and I have to do a double-take.

"Angelic Light? You mean the front-line saviour-guild?" I ask incredulously. I call them a saviour guild because just after clearing floor forty-eight, there were significantly less people fighting on the front lines until they stepped in, this shortage of people is largely due to death worms and other monsters that rarely went for dealing damage, preferring to go straight for the kill. Angelic Light was originally a guild that spent their time on the first fifteen floors, scoring a lot of easy experience. They joined the front lines on floor forty-nine, bringing more than fifty players to ease the burden on the remaining front-liners.

"Yes, I am. Why is that so hard to believe?" She queries with a prideful undertone.

"Oh, nothing in particular." I lie, trying not to think of her level. "So if you weren't here you'd be up there fighting level eighty dragons and the like?"

"No, I wouldn't be fighting, I use a lot of area-of-effect potions to weaken the enemy and heal and buff our members." She tells me. I see, so she's predominantly a support player, I must say, there is something comforting about having someone watch your back while providing small differences. "So, what do you do to train?" I inquire.

"I do a lot of alchemy to make the potions I need." She responds.

"That doesn't sound too dangerous. How were you captured? Surely you'd only have to leave safe zones on floor-clearing days? And even then you'd be surrounded by powerful players."

"...Herb picking."

"What?"

"Wild herbs are superior to bought herbs, I was out picking herbs on this floor when they stunned and grabbed me."

"Ah."

"I think I've shared enough for now," Marine tells me "why don't you tell me why you're so hell-bent on killing player killers?" My mental defensive wall rise to protect my secrets.

"They deserve it." I say, completely pokerfaced.

"Does it have something to do with the player Poh mentioned, this 'Shiniki'?" She pries and my whole face twitched violently. "Maybe just a bit." I reply, my voice jumping a whole two octaves.

"Was he a friend of yours?"

"He is." I answer with emphasis and Marine pauses for a minute.

"I'm sorry for your loss." She apologises and I scowl at her.

"He's alive, now shut up and let me enjoy my denial." I snap. Ah, the good old familiar territory of being rude, how I've missed you these last couple of minutes.

After a couple of minutes, Marine breaks the silence that had re-established itself between us. "Rin, are we friends?" She asks and I sigh contemplatively.

"I don't know, are we? We haven't known each other long, and we don't really know much about each other, so maybe not..." I trail off towards the end awkwardly.

"Right." There is silence once more, but again, she breaks it. "What are you going to do once your marker is green again?"

"I'll probably go back to hunting them down. Try and finish the job this time around." I reply tiredly.

"Well, seeing as you won't be doing anything important-" She starts.

"Hey!" I protest loudly, but she ignored me.

"-maybe you could help me level up some more?" She poses this question to me with a small smile.

"What? How?"

"Well, you weren't very happy with my level back there, and I'm sure you know some spots where someone of my... calibre could level up quickly." She explains.

"W-well I'm sure I can give you a list of places-" I begin, but she cuts me off.

"No, you have to come with me, I'm bad with direction anyway."

"Urgh, okay, I will... You'd better not be playing up to stereotype there, it's 2021; the stigma's just about gone." I concede with a weak, last-minute accusation that ends up being muttered.

A message box appears in front of my eyes: Accept [Marine]'s friend request? "What?" I mutter, looking over at Marine; did she make a mistake? "If we're going to meet up in a week, I'll need to know where you are." She explains and I narrow my eyes.

"I thought you said you were bad with directions?" I parrot her suspiciously.

"I am, but I can follow a map." She replies simply.

"Then I could just show you where on the map the spots are!"

"You're not getting out of this, Rin, I won't let you. You may be fast, but you can't run away from everything." Marine scolds, oh boy, I've had this talk before from several people.

"It worked for the Roadrunner." I mutter irritably, poking the 'accept' button.

"It's about midnight," I say, taking note of the time "I'll keep watch until morning, you get some sleep."

"Okay, thanks." Marine says gratefully and lies on the ground. Sleep is very important in this game, I mean, it's important in real life as well, but especially here. Sometimes it's hard for us players to remember that we are playing this game with only our brains, and it's hard to care about staying alive after ninety-six hours straight without sleep, not to mention the de-buffs it brings with it. Now that I think about it, my real body must be hospitalised or something, because hunger and thirst are an illusion here, but even so, the brain needs nourishment, hydration, all that important good stuff. I make a mental note to hug whoever has been taking care of my body and file it away next to my promise to Shino to see the real sky again.

I circle around our small camp, picking up sticks to use as fuel for the fire, but if I get desperate, I do have a rather powerful fire potion that burns for a long time. I put my findings in a pile, and then remembering I have a cushion in my inventory, I place it on the ground and sit in relative comfort... and certifiable boredom. I pull an apple out an apple from my inventory and munch away at it, I'd like to say that if I close my eyes and imagine, that I can taste a real apple's juice and consistency, but I can't. More accurately I can taste the sadness in the ones and zeroes.

I draw my rapier and have a look at its stats... hmm, the durability's taken a toll. I go to my inventory and scroll to the bottom to find my whetstone and slowly run it along the blade. This activity doesn't actually sharpen my blade, but it does restore the weapon's 'health.' A quiet grating sound joins the noise of the fire and the combination is rather soothing. I find myself at ease within a couple of seconds. After a few minutes, I stop and return the whetstone to my inventory and exchange it for a bladder of oil and a rag. I soak the rag in oil and run it along the metal. In real life, this would prevent the blade from collecting any rust, in here it increases the effectiveness of the sword's durability stat, the durability of the durability, if you will.

The boring yet tense hours pass. I stay on watch to make sure that nothing happens, but at the same time I'm hoping something _does_ happen to break the monotony. Eventually, light starts to filter through the leaves of the surrounding trees and Marine begins to stir as the light makes uneven patterns on her body. "Morning." She says drearily.

"Brilliant observation." I reply before I can stop myself and she casts me a withering glare, but I remain unfazed. After a short argument, which I lose, I end up walking Marine to the road that leads straight to the nearest town. Not wishing to be seen, I melted back behind the tree-line as she walked away.

"Right." I mutter, rubbing my hands together. I'm alone again, but now I don't have to do things while making sure I'm protecting Marine at the same time. After checking my inventory I confirm that I have two days worth of food left, of course, it's two days if I stick to three small portions each day, I could probably last the week if I tried. However, I do not intend to resort to this option again, for I have a more favourable alternative: there's a big-arse lake about two-hundred metres away, and in this game, where there's a lot of water, there's a lot of fish.

I recall Marine saying something about there being good herbs on this floor, hmm. Okay, I may be unable to move around for a week, but I plan to be far from stagnant, I can use this week to focus solely on alchemy, fishing and cooking, maybe with a side of hunting and trapping as well. When a player levels up a skill, they gain an experience reward, this number gets bigger with every level, but every tenth level, the player gets what's called a percentage reward. This reward is still experience, but rather than a set number of points, it gives the player a percentage of their experience requirement to level up. This system can actually be disadvantageous at lower levels if the percentage is less than the previous set reward, but at level seventy-six, one percent is about twelve-thousand, so things are looking up.

A strategy has been developed to take advantage of the percentage reward that involves purposely neglecting to train various skills to essentially over-train them later and roll around in the experience points like an obnoxious billionaire rolls around in their money. Now, I'd like to say that I'm intentionally using this strategy, but really, it's an accident, because seriously, there are not many people who go into an MMORPG with the mentality of "I'm gonna be the best damn fisherman there ever was, I'm gonna catch 'em a-" well, I'm sure you get the idea.

I observe the lake from the trees; I can see the waterfall on the other side of it. The beach continues for about twenty metres from the water-line, and then there's about another ten metres of grass before there are any trees. Using the leftovers from the fire Marine started, I set up the camp fire in the space between the sand and trees and move my firewood pile to sit next to it. I pull what cooking equipment I have out of my inventory, which consists entirely of a low-quality sad little bronze pot, and half fill it with lake water (thankfully it never occurred to the developers to include salt-water) and sit it next to the currently unlit camp fire.

I am hit with a moment of revelation as I think about fishing: I lack the rod to do so. Hmm, this may be difficult. Oh wait, no, hang on, I'll just use the same method as every civilisation ever prior to the invention of the most basic fishing rod: throw something sharp at the fish. With my cape and boots in my inventory and my pants rolled up to my thighs, I stand knee-deep in the lake, the Marmatrix – the weapon I got from defeating a boss, the key to a high-floor treasure trove – is held gracelessly in my hand above my head like a spear. "Come out, come out you slippery little bitches, I know you're in there." I mutter to myself.

I worked out pretty quickly that (surprise) the Marmatrix is neither elegant nor aerodynamic when sent flying through the air. I did manage to spear (or should I say sword?) a fish after an hour, however it did nothing for my fishing stat. I spent the middle hours of the day cooking the fish in my pot, which took a long time because (a) the pot is small, (b) the fire is small, (c) the fish only just fits in the pot and (d) because at the current point in time, when it comes to cooking, I'm a royal flop. Are you even supposed to cook a fish in a pot?

With the burnt fish in my inventory (I _really_ wanted to make sure it was cooked), I start scouring the forest for herbs. This forest is surprisingly abundant, but then again, I've never actively looked for any in the first place, so the amount that there are shouldn't really seem irregular. After gathering together a small collection of various herbs, I head back to my camp site. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that cooking food and brewing up potions of unknown qualities in the same pot is a health hazard. It that is the case, too bad so sad, I'm doing it.

This game may be a death trap, but at least the programmers were nice enough to provide the creator of potions with an infinite amount of small glass vials to store their concoctions in. Unfortunately the potions I ended up making were neither potent nor useful; I think the most advanced one is the Potion of Discolouration, which will make an object change colour for a short time, something that provides no use when it comes to killing player killers. Maybe I should just drop them around the forest for some adventurer to stumble across and be disappointed in what they thought could be treasure.

The previously mentioned activities take up the rest of the daylight hours and now I'm lying on my back, staring at the sky. Or, more accurately, where the sky would be if there wasn't floor twenty-four directly above me. There are crystals hanging from the ceiling, probably to simulate stars while maintaining the game's lore, but they aren't pretty; they disgust me. I used to waste time with Shino staring at the sky, but that past time has been completely robbed of me now, with neither friend nor sky present.

A tear runs down my face and I make no move to wipe it away. With Marine gone I can cry all I want and I won't have to worry about being judged. Personally, I feel that Shino being killed by mistake only adds insult to my still being alive, and unlike every other insult I've been on the receiving end of in my life, this one burns and there's nothing I can do to stop the pain. I know that I need to move on, but I don't think that I can, maybe because I don't want to. I don't feel that to forgive and forget is the right thing to do; there is no doubt in my mind that to kill those who prey on the weak is what I should be doing. Maybe I'll be able to pursue something else once I've eradicated my personal vendetta, I don't know.

I think that at some point I fell asleep, I don't know, maybe I just stared into nothing without a thought in my mind, regardless of what happened, it's morning now. I'll spare you the boring details and cut it short, my day consisted of rapier-fishing, herb gathering, shoddy potion making, stick gathering, cooking with questionable apparatus and getting pissed at the roof. This process repeated itself for three days, boring as all hell, but I started to get some decent experience income, which was nice, especially when my level jumped to seventy-seven.

With tree days until my red marker goes back to green, something happens to break up my new routine. This 'something' comes in the form of another player. "Yah! Your money or your life!" They yell, shattering the quiet of the forest, jumping down from the branches of a tree, brandishing a hand axe threateningly. I'm not taken by surprise; I've purposely been procrastinating around this tree for five minutes waiting for them to make a move. They're not very quiet either, I could hear breathing ten metres away over the serenity of the trees. As they yell, I whip out my rapier and hold it to their neck. "Couldn't have said it better myself." I respond, turning the tables before they have a chance to go against me.

"You didn't think this out very well," I say condescendingly "why don't you identify yourself?" The player doesn't respond, instead spitting at my feet with a foul expression. I move my arm ever so slightly, pushing my blade into their neck, nowhere near enough to kill them, but enough to inflict some damage. Being labelled as a yellow player only lasts for a day, and it's a lot easier to explain than a red marker, what I'm saying is that this small attack by me doesn't affect my sentence. "When someone holds a blade to your neck, you should be inclined to answer their questions." I tell them, but again they stay silent. "I say 'should' because you're clearly too stupid to recognise this." They grit their teeth and look away, but otherwise stay close-mouthed.

"Let's see... Jassonack and, ah, you're a red player, I see." I say, looking up at their name.

"Tch, so are you." Jassonack responds rudely, good, he's talking now.

"You wouldn't happen to be in a player killing guild, now would you?" I ask, ignoring his statement.

"Tch."

"Which one? Laughing Coffin? Shadowmare? Knights of the Dark? Some other one I don't yet know about? Tell me!" I snap loudly as I say the last part.

"What's mm affiliation mean to you?"

"Mild interest really, you won't live to see tomorrow regardless." I reply offhandedly.

"We're the same, what's the point in killing me?" Jassonack asks.

"I'm going to pretend that you didn't just compare the two of us and ask again: who are you with?" I respond coolly.

"And I'm not going to answer you."

"Well then, goodbye." I bring my blade back and swing it around, but something clicks in my mind and I stop my rapier as it is ten centimetres from murder.

"Due to my current situation, killing you would be most disadvantageous." I tell Jassonack.

"What?" He asks. If I kill him now, my sentence as a red player will be renewed for another week, if I killed him... well, let's just say I can already feel the spot on my cheek where the back of Marine's hand will undoubtedly meet. "Fortunately for you, I have an appointment, killing you would make you even more of an inconvenience to me than you already are."

"I don't give a crap."

"You're right; it shouldn't matter to you because you are still not long for this world."

"Hmm?"

"Oh never you mind, you don't give a crap, remember?" With this I punch his face with the Marmatrix's hilt and grab him by the hair while he's off-balance and drag him to the beach.

I throw Jassonack onto the sand and stomp on his lower back when he tries to get up. "Now, I'm going to give you an opportunity to empty your inventory; an opportunity to be useful to someone in your last moments." I explain impatiently.

"Tch, why should I do anything for you?" Jassonack spits.

"Put it this way," I say, raising my foot and stomping down on him numerous times, he can't feel the pain, but it does make him splutter uncontrollably "it's not a choice you have. I'm taking your stuff."

Sitting on top of Jassonack, I perform what could quite possibly be the most casual daylight robbery in the history of crime. "Hmm," I muse as I scroll through his stuff "I can see why you didn't want to give me your things; they suck watermelons."

"What does that even mean?"

"Shh, I'm robbing you."

"You make it sound like you're going to a freaking supermarket!"

"Two health potions, one agility potion, five poisoned darts... sorry, you were saying something? Never mind, I don't care."

"God damn you, let me go!"

"Hush like a good little bitch." I reply, pushing his head down into the sand. Ah power.

I 'confiscate' a few potions, the darts and all the documents he has before standing again. "Urgh, finally." Jassonack grunts.

"Alright, time to die." I say merrily.

"You said you couldn't kill me!"

"Correct, but did you know that drowning counts as the environment killing you, not me?" I inform him, and he tries to get up again, but I kick him in the gut and he lands in the shallows. "No!" He cries out as he thrashes wildly to stand up, but I leap in after him, grabbing him by the back of the neck and squeezing hard. "Argh!" He yells.

"Tell me, how many perished at your hand before you tried to add me to your list?" I ask.

"Let me go, you bastard!" Comes the eloquently phrased reply.

"TELL ME! HOW MANY?!" I thunder and his attitude changes dramatically.

"Please... please stop... I don't want to die..." Jassonack is crying now, but his tears are vapours of steam to my fire. "How... many?" I ask again, slowly this time. He whimpers a bit before finally forming a word.

"T-three..."

"That's all you needed to say, now go down quietly with the remnants of your dignity." I say, forcing his head beneath the water. He doesn't struggle; he's accepted his fate.

I lie on my back, staring at the despised night roof crystals as my camp fire crackles away. "That came too naturally." I mutter unhappily.


	21. Chapter 21

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twenty-first chapter of Player Killer Killer! I'll save my crap for the end of the chapter. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs. Please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 21**

In the afternoon of the third day after the drowning of Jassonack, my player marker faded from red back into green; I was free of the cage that I had restricted myself to. I open my menu and go to a particular part of it I've rarely exercised the use of: the friend list. It takes exactly zero seconds to locate Marine's name on the list of one and I check to see where she is. My map says she's on floor twenty-three, which is good, because that's where I am. I walk out to the road where I last farewelled her seven days ago and stroll down it without any fear of being seen. It'll be nice not to have to suffer my own cooking for a while.

A message notification makes a pinging noise and I open up my menu to see what it is. It's from Marine: _Where are you?_ After staring at those three words for a few seconds, I type back my reply: _I thought you said you could read a map._ To this I receive no reply and I chuckle to myself. Ah, instant messaging in a fantasy game. The developers did so much to create a game around swords and monsters, yet still the twenty-first century managed to creep into it.

I arrive in a town as the sun starts to set and I check Marine's position, oh good, she's in the same town. I walk to the centre of town and do something that lets everyone in the vicinity know I'm waiting for someone: hide in a bush. It takes a couple of minutes, but Marine comes into view, head buried in her map. As she gets closer, I step out in front of her. "Hello." I greet quietly, but loud enough to be heard, however she doesn't look up from her map until it's too late. "Hm?" She asks as she barrels into me, sending me back into the bush's grasp. "Rin?" She queries, a little concerned.

"You walk with a lot of force." I mutter, struggling to get back on my feet.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh, everything's just leafy green." I respond dryly.

"So where are we going first?" Marine asks eagerly and I mentally chuckle to myself: she, a woman who is clearly my elder by a substantial margin, is pestering me, a teenage student, about things like a small child. Disregarding this thought, I open my inventory and go to the journal section, which contains all the notes I've taken.

Some time ago, Shino and I predicted that there would be a shortage of monsters to go around, disallowing everyone to level up at the same rate. Allow me to explain the importance of this: if we have, say, three players that are five levels above ten others, then the three have the advantage of being able to tackle higher level monsters with ease. Now, this sounds like a good thing, but once a substantial level gap is established between player and monster, the ten players who are on a lower level are suddenly risking their lives almost meaninglessly as they won't be able to effectively contribute to battles or be able to survive being hit. Shino and I purposely 'failed' to clear certain areas of boss mazes so that we could reap the experience later, it wouldn't be much, but it'd be something.

We teleported to floor seven and made our way to the boss tower. "Rin, I know I'm weak, but seriously, floor seven? I'm not that bad." Marine complains and I regard her disdainfully. "C'mon, don't look at me like that."

"You asked me to help." I state. "I'm helping, and my help requires you to be on floor seven."

"But everything on floor seven's weeeeeaaaaak!" She moans loudly and there is a long silence between us. "Are you being annoying because you actually think you're better than floor seven or because you're bored?" I ask wryly and she pouts.

"I'm bored." She admits. "Do me a favour and argue with me."

"No." I snap irritably.

We arrive at the boss tower and I follow my map through the maze to the location I'd marked more than a year ago. "Rin, are we lost?" Marine asks, I don't even bother to look up from my map.

"You might be, I'm not." I respond in a bored tone.

"I think you're lost."

"You thought wrong."

"C'mon, we've passed this wall three times." She complains.

"It's made with the same wall sprite as every other wall in this tower; it makes sense that it looks identical." I counter.

"Maybe, but you don't know that." She bickers.

"My dad designed how everything in this game looks." I tell her and she pouts.

"That doesn't mean he told you anything. Besides, that point proves nothing!"

"Correct, but I'd hoped it would shut you up." We glare at each other for a moment before Marine breaks off the small contest with a huff.

"Has anyone ever told you how insufferably rude you are?" Marine asks, shattering the silence into a million tiny shards and I sigh. "It has been heavily implied upon numerous occasions, why?"

"Are you like this to everyone?"

"Take a wild guess."

"Even to your father? Were you like this to Shiniki?" She questions rapidly.

"I make a point of not giving anyone any special treatment." I reply through grit teeth. How _dare_ she use Shino's name like that! "God, you're an arsehole!" She exclaims.

"So I've been told."

"Well, we're here." I say unceremoniously as we turn a corner and, sure enough, there's a large group of monsters called gerebins. They're velociraptor-like things with three tails and lot of their attacks involve jumping and coming down on their target from above. There is an easy way to counter their jumping attacks that involves impaling them on your weapon as they come down and let their momentum do all the work. Of course, this won't work if you're using an axe or a brick-on- ahem, a mace. "Alright, you go kill them, I'll wait here." I say and Marine looks at me incredulously.

"You're not going to help?"

"Hadn't planned on it."

"But... why?"

"You doubted my sense of direction and called me rude – however true it may be – but mainly because I'm not the one who has to level up quickly." I explain.

"I guess that makes sense... but aren't you going to fight alongside me and give me tips?"

"You want tips? I believe there's a tutorial for that, but okay. Hit the monsters with your sword, don't let them hit you, and don't die. There, I gave you three. Feel like you're getting value for money?"

"Not particularly."

"Too bad, so sad. Now hurry up, we're on a schedule here at Rin's Tours of Death, customer irritation guaranteed."

"I hate you."

"Have you started yet?"

Marine stalks off angrily to fight the gerebins, drawing her sword in the process. As she gets close, they notice her presence and turn on her as one. There are twenty-three of them, and they're all around level twenty-five, with a leader at twenty-seven. "Oh crap." I hear Marine curse as the gerebins collectively angrily hiss at her.

"Congratulations, you're not dead." I tell Marine as she walks back to me on level thirty-nine and on low health. "Shut up." She snaps rudely.

"You're in an awfully bad mood for someone who just levelled up twice in fifteen minutes." I reply a little teasingly and she glares at me. "Shaddup, I will hurt you."

"Said the level thirty-nine to the level seventy-seven." I reply smoothly. Ooh, now I've done it, she's _really_ mad now. This is why Shino was my only friend; he rarely got pissed off at anything, least of all me. Hmm. Maybe I'm being just a little bit too harsh. Maybe a _little_ praise is in order.

"Look, Marine, you did a good job. I didn't help because I had confidence in you succeeding." I say. Those words taste strange flicking over my tongue. Marine's scowl softens. "Really? You mean that?"

"Y-yeah... until you- ahem, nothing." I start, but halt my words before they can do unintentional damage. "Until what?" She asks suspiciously. I think I can hear her scowl coming back.

"Nothing." I lie, pokerfaced.

"Rin." Oh, she's mad again. But what I was going to say would only serve to anger her further. "Tell me." She says forcefully. Oh well, she literally asked for it. "I had total confidence in you until you swung your sword." I say honestly, accepting whatever fate may come.

Marine grabs me by the shoulders and pins me to a wall. "What do you mean?" Yep, that's a lethal glare alright. If I explain myself, it'll only throw kerosene onto an already-raging inferno. Oh well, I do have the occasional arsonistic tendency. "Honestly, you're not a very good swordsman, well, swordswoman. Woeful, in fact."

Do bombs go off silently? Because Marine's been quiet for a good ten seconds now. "How can I get better?" She asks abruptly.

"What?" I ask, very surprised that I haven't yet received an uppercut to the jaw.

"I asked you how I can get better."

"Well... training, I guess. Lots of it." I suggest.

"How will I know when I'm better?"

"Um... your moves will flow into each other more, you won't have so many blocky movements, yeah, that sounds about right." I tell her quickly. Is she going to hit me or not? If she's angry, I'd prefer that the hit me, I understand pain better than things like 'the silent treatment' or whatever. That's something I've learnt about myself over the years.

"Will you train me?" She asks intensely and she's not kidding, I can tell by the look in her eyes. I never really understood how people got messages by looking into the eyes of others, and I still don't. Maybe I'm imagining things. Her gaze is unblinking and unwavering, she's being sincere and- how can I say no to a face like that? ...God, I'm an arsehole. "No." I tell her with finality. I'm not sure whether I said that because I meant it or to give my mind the middle finger. She lets go of me and I drop to the ground, only now do I realise that she had been holding me up off of my feet. "Well, if you say so..." She mutters, more disappointed than angry now. Crap, now I feel bad. I need an excuse to make everything better ASAP. "Marine, it's not that I don't want to, I would train you, but we use different weapons. I couldn't help you anyway. I'm sorry." I say to her, mentally ignoring the similarities between the sword and rapier, including the fact that a rapier is a class of sword. "Yeah, I guess you're right." She sighs and walks away dejectedly. I hurry to follow her, I'm the map guy, after all.

Urgh, I feel even crappier now.

 **In all honesty, this wasn't the way that I had initially planned on this chapter going and ending it like this depresses me a little. But hey, you guy are the important ones here, what did you think? I've got various other plot points set in stone already, it's just this part in the story that I'm sort of pulling out of thin air, that's why my updates are taking a while. That and human laziness. Also, please let me know if you think the quality of my writing is dropping, I've been trying to maintain a good standard at the least, but I feel that I may have unintentionally started to let go with the current haphazardness of this point in the story. Well, goodbye, I hope to see you all next chapter (whenever it comes to exist).**


	22. Chapter 22

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twenty-second chapter of Player Killer Killer! As most of you are probably aware, it's taken me a** _ **long**_ **time to get this chapter out, the reason for that is that I got stuck at one point for quite a while. Once I got past the section in question, the rest just flowed like post-laxative bowel movements. With that delightful image in mind, I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 22**

Ever since out disagreement in the boss tower on floor seven, Marine and I hadn't spoken much more than necessary. We are now on floor twenty-one and Marine has progressed to level fifty after fighting on floors eight, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, seventeen and twenty. From floor eleven, I had been providing Marine with small assistances, watching her back for the most part, but on floor twenty she had been struggling more than normal. This made sense though, because now the enemies were coming up to her level and higher, I had to save her many times from attacks from behind and replenish her health with potions. After that ordeal, I was reluctant to proceed further.

"Marine, I think we should stop here." I tell her, we're outside the boss tower at the moment.

"Why? Night is not for three hours; I see no reason to stop." She replies. Her voice is dead, it's a change I've noticed over the past week and it worries me; it's too familiar. "After all the close calls last time, I am convinced that you may not survive this next encounter." I say and she flares up.

"I thought you had confidence in me!" She exclaims loudly, this is the most life she's shown since floor eleven. "I do, but-" I start, but she cuts me off.

"I thought you trusted me!"

"Are you going to let me-"

"Can't you see I'm better than I was?! I'm stronger, I can-" This time, I cut her off.

"SILENCE!" I roar over her. I detest being interrupted. Her eyes are wide – is that fear? – but she does as I say and makes no noise.

"Good, now, I do have confidence in you and I do trust you. Yes, I can see you're stronger and that's great, but whether or not you noticed, you nearly died multiple times on the floor below this." I explain. It looks like she's taking this in, I mean, her gaze is intense and attentive, but intensity has been in her eyes from floor seven.

"You're... worried for me?" Marine asks lightly.

"Hm?"

"Are you worried about me?" She queries again, stronger this time.

"I-I wouldn't say worried... just... concerned." I reply with reddening cheeks. Marine smirks, there's a first since last week. "Worried and concerned are synonymous." She says.

"Shut it." I snap, but my normal rudeness just won't manifest itself.

"You're worried about me." She teases with life back in her speech now.

"S-so?! What's wrong with that?" I respond, verbally retreating.

"Nothing's wrong. It's nice to know; it means you won't let me die." As she says this, my face takes on a hue that would make a freshly picked tomato jealous and I turn away from her. "S-shut up! Go die for all I care!"

Okay, maybe I do care about what happens to her. But just a little! Nothing excessive or out of the ordinary, I'm sure. Regardless of whether I care about her or not, it's nicer to talk to her now than how she had been. Ever since we came out of the seventh floor tower, out marches had been silent. I know I'm constantly telling people (especially Marine) to shut up, but that doesn't always mean I want them to do so, telling people to shut their traps is just something I happen to enjoy doing. Don't know why though. Maybe I'm just more comfortable with silence and prefer to instil it myself rather than have other people do so for me.

"Rin." I turn around to face Marine. "I know you're worried, but I still want to do this."

"I know, but I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to keep you alive this time." I reply, red creeping over my face like the hands of a wraith. "If you're worried about me then just step in and fight!" Marine tells me emphatically. "So I don't get as much experience, who cares? I'll still be alive!" I'm silent for a whole minute after this. "Um... Rin?" She asks delicately.

"Shut up!" I snap explosively. "Get your own protection!"

"So you agree with me?"

"Yes." I concede.

"Good, if you're ever uncertain of anything, you can always come to me." She tells me placatingly.

"Okay, shut up for real now," I reply in a light tone "you're the-" an image of Shino pops into my mind "-second-last person I want telling me to get my crap together."

We enter the boss tower and begin to navigate the maze to the spot I'd specified in my notes. "We're taking a lot of left turns." Marine notes.

"We have to make a lot of lefts."

"Why?" She asks.

"Because that's how we get there." I reply dryly.

"I think you're lost." She challenges.

"I think you're bored."

"Touché."

"Rin." Marine calls out. This sounds like a pointless conversation already.

"What?"

"I'm still bored."

"Congratulations, you've lasted all of twenty seconds since last establishing that fact, new record." I respond. "I need to do something!"

"Count the bricks in the wall." I offer the same way one advertises watching grass grow.

"But there's so many of them!" She complains.

"Well then, you should have a limitless source of entertainment."

"I hate you."

"Up yours."

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiin." My left eye twitches violently when she says this; only Shino's allowed to say that!

"What?" I reply irritably. She's not Shino, so she doesn't get Shino's reply of an extended word.

"You know how you said they use the same wall sprite in an area?" She asks and I sigh.

"Sure, why not?" Marine pouts for a moment before continuing.

"Well, if I'm counting bricks, how do I know where one wall ends and the next begins?"

"How am I supposed to know that?"

"You're the son of the guy who deigned everything." She says this as if it explains everything and should be adequate justification. "I believe that it was you who said that that fact didn't prove anything." I retort, she opens her mouth to reply, but I shoot her down. "This exchange is so stupid, it stops now."

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiin." Marine calls again. I am _this_ close to snapping right now.

"I will flaming bitch-slap you." I threaten. Never mind, I snapped.

"M'kay, whatever, but seriously-" She starts, but I interrupt loudly.

"For the third bloody time: WHAT?!"

"Triggered much? Anyways, I just wanted to ask: what are you fighting for?"

"What is this, shonen manga?" I mock.

"Shut up, it's never too late for existential questions." She pushes.

"No."

"C'mon, I'll tell you why I'm fighting if you tell me why you are." She offers and I regard her cynically, remaining silent. "Rin... are you...?"

"Not going to talk? Yes."

"Rin, please."

"Rin no."

"You're the worst."

"Boohoo." I respond, sarcasm laced through my words more intensely than a cookie made with marijuana.

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Oh crap, what is that?" Marine asks worriedly, pointing ahead.

"No, wait what?" I look up from my map as a big muscly thing with an axe come barrelling towards us. The thing swings its weapon at us in a wide arc. "Shoop." I mutter as I duck beneath the attack easily and I hear Marine cry out in pain, which is strange because there's no pain in this game. But, if she can scream, then that means she hasn't been hit anywhere overly important.

I draw my rapier and take a step towards out assailant. I leap off of one foot, stepping on the attacker's knee – which is at my stomach height – and using it as a launch pad to get higher. I push off the knee and plant my next step on one of the creature's many well-defines abs, I prepare and release execution as I come level with the head. I slice my blade down; cutting through the flesh easily with a red afterimage of my blade follows the weapon on its lethal path. I cut through the body, going down until I hit the ground and my foe showers over my in a sea of red polygons. It wouldn't be a fantasy game without slicing something completely in half, after all.

"My hand!" Marine yelps.

"What about it?"

"It's gone!" She says urgently, waving her freshly-severed stump at me.

"So it is." I agree readily.

"Do something about it!" She cries.

"Before I do anything, can we just both agree that you deserved this for being so annoying?"

"I don't care! Fix it!" She exclaims. "I'm dying here!"

"No I really can't do anything until you say you had this coming." I tease as her health depletes to yellow. "Fine! I deserve this, now help me!"

"Ooooooooh, that feels so good." I mutter.

"If you're done pleasuring yourself-"

"Sure, drink this." I toss her a bodily perfection potion which she gulps down in a second.

"I believe that I've established that I whole-heartedly detest you." She checks.

"Plenty of times." I confirm with a smirk.

"What was that thing?" Marine asks, making sure her hand is in working order.

"That was a Minotaur." I reply, glad that she's finally asking productive questions.

"How do you know?"

"I've fought them before, I read its name tag, and you don't get minotaur horns from goblins." I list.

"Alright, you made your point." She placates.

"Don't be so flippant, you'll be fighting them."

"Excuse me?"

"Consider yourself excused, you think I'm kidding?"

"I hope you're kidding."

"Okay. In that case I'd suggest not looking around the corner."

"I hate you and everything you stand for."

"That's the spirit." I reply, smirking as I do so.


	23. Chapter 23

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twenty-third chapter of Player Killer Killer! I think you guys have waited long enough for this, so I'll keep anything I have to say to the end. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 23**

Marine draws her sword, takes a deep breath and charges at the lumbering group of minotaurs ahead. There are seven of them in total, all between levels forty-eight and fifty, with the exception of the level fifty-two mini-boss that towers two metres above the rest. I fall in behind Marine and keep her pace easily. "I'm having second thoughts now that we're closer." She tells me. "They've got to be at least three metres tall."

"Probably." I shrug. "You can retreat if you must." I offer.

"I won't." She replies firmly, resolve in her eyes (well, I assume that it's in her eyes, I'm behind her so technically I can't see her eyes). "Good answer." I mutter.

Marine picks up the pace with a yell as we get closer. "Why would you do that?" I question as all seven minotaurs turn their attention to us (well, mainly her, but whatever). One of the large half-bulls swings their axe at her, she ducks beneath the hunk of grimy-looking metal and slashes at its stomach, which is at about her shoulder height. Her attack does a moderate amount of damage, but nothing that could be described as substantial. I look to the left in time to see a different minotaur, one that is slightly shorter, bringing its weapon in an arc to intercept me and I accelerate to a full-pelt sprint to avoid it and ending up behind it in the process.

Having missed its initial attack the minotaur steps forward with one leg, now in a lunge-like position, its axe currently over its shoulder, both hands on the wooden pole. As I saw all of the monster's upper-body muscles tense up, I knew exactly what it was going to do; an attack that would swipe at most of the area around it.

A single, high-powered slice that would sever all in its path, the only hope of surviving an attack like this would be to dodge, for if it were to hit I would be severed in two. The advantage I have, however, is time. The consequence for size is slowness, while the axe will be splitting the air at high speeds, relatively speaking, it will take a long time for it to reach my current position, and I believe that I have stated previously my ability to move from one place to another with promptness.

As the minotaur begins its deadly attack, I hasten from a standstill to top speed in three steps like I'm some sort of supercar. As the battleaxe gets a quarter of the way through its stroke, I jump, planting my foot firmly on the monster's ankle and use it as a Launchpad to its calf. The muscles in the minotaur's legs now tense up as its attack reaches its most powerful part, where the axe will carry the most speed, but with the tensing, I am given new footholds and begin my speedy climb of its muscular back. As I reach the nape of its neck, the minotaur rears its head and from its shoulder, I pounce up to its head, using the bend in one of its horns as my final stepping stone, firing myself airborne. I flip backwards and bring my rapier back, the blade glows red with execution's power and release it no sooner than it's ready, cleaving a red line through the minotaur's head and torso, cutting down until I have one knee on the ground and my blade horizontal as colour fades from its metal.

I look over at Marine to discover that she is surrounded on four sides. Well, this _is_ supposed to be a challenge for her, but maybe I could grab the attention of one or two of them. I run over to the general area and come up behind one minotaur that has its legs spread out in a wide stance. Pulling my blade back, I prepare and release split lunge on one of its legs from point blank, tearing it off, the move ends with my rapier buried hilt-deep in the monster's other leg. I pull my blade out and small red triangles sprinkle out and dissipate into the air. Another one of the minotaurs ganging up on Marine spots me and brings its axe in an overhead arc to cut me in half, but I block the attack with mirage blade. Now that I've disabled one and attracted the attention of another, I slowly give ground, letting the one after me follow and isolate themselves from the group.

Marine hasn't done much in the way of damage in the last minute or so, she's been doing a lot of dodging, however. I'd commend her on her efforts, but axes are rather predictable weapons, they tend to be more purely strength-based as opposed to skill or technique. I turn my attention back to the battle at hand and notice something strange about my opponent's colossal axe: it's not an axe; it's a giant brick-on- ahem, a mace, and the head of it is like two double-headed battleaxes put together, with one head sticking out of the pole at every ninety degrees. The ugly-arse death stick comes flying my way again and I easily side-step it. As the minotaur tries to lift it from the ground, I step onto one of the weapon's blades and get lifted up with it. I jump off after a couple of seconds, landing atop the monster's head. I hop off the head and land on a shoulder (doesn't matter which one; this'll be over soon). "Your weapon is bad, and you should feel bad." I tell it, not that I think it understands me (or cares), but that doesn't matter as my blade glows green and split lunge once again ends another monster's life as I blow a Rin-shaped hole in its head.

I hit the ground and crouch in time to avoid an axe stroke that would have decapitated me. It's the mini-boss this time. Crap, I wanted Marine to kill it. "Look, I know you're doing your evil thing and all," I say as I sidestep another deadly attack "but, I mean, could you just step back for a little? You're messing with the arrangements I'd planned." The minotaur pauses for a moment, did it understand me? Has it decided to comply? The monster roars at me and I am assaulted by one of the most disgusting weapons in the entirety of Sword Art Online: monster spittle. "Bloody revolting." I mutter, shaking myself off like a wet dog. "Yuck, yuck, yuck." The minotaur's axe glows an ominous yellow (a colour I never knew I would come to fear), but I'm not overly interested in finding out what that means, so I sprint between the giant monster's legs and slice at its left Achilles tendon before sprinting away because I have no desire to have that thing fall on me.

Marine's doing quite well, she's killed the one I disabled earlier, but now she has the last three able-bodied ones surrounding her, one of them she's managed to take down to red health, while the other two are in different states of green. I run to her side and use mirage blade to block an minotaur's attempt on her back. "Yeah, no."

"Oh hey, you're here." Marine notices as she stabs out at the red-health's knee.

"Yeah, how's things?" I ask casually.

"Oh, you know, coming along slowly." She replies with the voice of someone who is pre-occupied. I look around at her, her health is down to yellow, but not below half, but it's what's beside her health bar that concerns me. "You're bleeding." I state.

"Just a little." She shrugs.

"A little can go a long way." I tell her.

"That is not the correct use of that phrase. It's meant to be inspirational." Marine scolds and I scowl.

"You want inspiration? Fine. You are going to die if you don't do something about that." I tell her.

"Much better, cover me." She says, ducking down and opening her inventory. I activate mirage blade again and swing my rapier around, protecting us from any attack as she crushes a health crystal. She's still bleeding, but at least now it's not a worrying injury. Health crystals simply restore health, they don't close wounds, you need the potion of bodily perfection or mending to do that. That said, the bleeding de-buff does wear off after a while.

"Rin, cover your eyes." Marine tells me.

"News flash, I can't see if I do that." I snap.

"That may be a good thing." She replies and despite my protests, I comply. Through my hand, I see a golden light illuminate my eyelids, I hear the minotaurs growl angrily, so I wait for the light to fade. I uncover my eyes and find that the red-health monster is now dead and the other two are blinded. "That was brilliant!" I exclaim and Marine beams at me.

"Aw, that's the nicest thing you've said during our time here! I think you're changing for the better!"

"No, the literal definition of 'brilliant' is bright. That was bright." I defend.

"Whatever." Marine dismisses as she goes to attack one of the two monsters still standing. She must have used a crystal of white light, or something along those lines, and now that I think about it, I did hear a shattering noise just before the light came into existence.

As the monsters begin to recover, I walk behind the one Marine is attacking and cut at the backs of its knees, making it fall. "Rin, you IDIOT!" Marine shrieks as the monster's descending body looms over her. "Hm, maybe my timing of that could've been better." I muse quietly as Marine drags herself out from beneath the minotaur's heavy body, cursing my existence with every breath. The minotaur that remains standing advances on her grounded form, but I jump atop the body of its fallen comrade and get its attention in the traditional, time-honoured method. "Oi! Beef-brain! Nincowpoop!" I could tell my plan worked by the large axe-head that came flying at me from the right. "Marine, are you up yet?"I call as I jump to avoid the attack and all the ones that follow it.

"Maybe if you stopped bouncing on this thing, I could do just that!" She yells angrily.

"Yeah, yeah, quit whinging and get up."

"I hate you!" She says, but it's become such a common phrase from her that I don't register it.

I entertain the minotaur for another minute, then the one I was standing on glowed white. "Oh." I muttered as it exploded into red polygons and I fell to the ground. "You took your time!" I tell Marine as she rushes past me. "Shaddup!"

"Will do." I shrug, jogging behind her. The minotaur swings its axe at her and she ducks beneath the blow. She starts slashing at it passionately, depleting its health slowly. "Let's remember that we have sword skills, shall we?" I say and she stops.

"Oh, yes, I forgot about them." She mutters. Marine narrowly dodges an overhead stroke and raises her sword, the blade begins to glow red. With a yell she releases the skill and slashes three times, a crimson trail following her blade. This is Triple Slash, a fairly self-explanatory skill that can be used by most weapons (rapier is one of the few exceptions), if I remember correctly, it's three slices that do less damage than normal, but all are guaranteed to hit if the first attack does. The battle doesn't last much longer as one of the minotaur's legs is cut off and she used execution to, well, execute it. (Yet another self-explanatory skill)

This kill is followed by the most boring mini-boss fight ever, with Marine using execution to eliminate the final enemy. We both receive a lot of experience points and Marine levels up, I sigh. "Now just to get out of here." I mutter.

"What's wrong? I thought you had a map?" She asks.

"I do. It's the process that I'm dreading. You've only ever been annoying on long walks." I tell her.

"You've got a lot of nerve…" She trails off and I yawn.

"No, just a higher level." I scratch my head as I sheath my rapier. "Oh well, might as well get started now." I say, walking back the way we came.

"Wait up." Marine says; she's still scrolling through her rewards.

"Keep up." I respond.

It takes a while, but we make it out of the boss tower, when we do, Marine gets a notification in her messages. "A meeting's being held among the high-level guilds and players." She tells me as she reads through it. "Really?" I ask. "I wasn't invited."

"You don't give your contact details to anyone, it's your own fault." Marine snaps at me. After a short moment, she laughs. "Ooh, and you would've liked this, they're trying to hunt down Laughing Coffin. Too bad you're not going." Roughly, I pull her over so that I can read the message over her shoulder. "Are you always this rude?" She asks me, I don't respond because she knows the answer.

"Floor fifty-five." I grumble. "Bloody Heathcliff."

"I take it you're interested." Marine raises an eyebrow at me.

"I'll attend the meeting." I reply. "Let's see, it's tomorrow, yeah, I'll be there."

"What about my training?" She asks.

"What about your training?" I reply, deadpanned. She sighs.

"Oh well, doesn't matter, I'll be there as well, my whole guild had been notified."

"Well, let's get back to the nearest town and teleport." I say. Because Marine's here, I manage to contain the dark laughter that wells up inside of me.

Laughing Coffin, I'm back on your scent.

 **Somehow, this chapter just wouldn't come naturally to me, which is weird, considering that it's all fighting, which is generally pretty easy for me. Oh well, it's finally here now, so I can stop feel so guilty for not posting. However, now that I've got this story back to a point that I had initially planned, I should be able to post new chapters more frequently. That said, many others have said that in the past and not delivered, so I beg you not to hold me to my word. Anyway, see you all next chapter, whenever it happens.**

 **Almost forgot: To answer your question, VampiricShadow, as to whether I had any tips for aspiring authors, well, as one myself, I can tell you that you should always write something that you yourself would want to read. There are more than seven billion people in this world, at least one of them will want to read what you write.**


	24. Chapter 24

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twenty-fourth chapter of Player Killer Killer! It's been a solid too long since the last update. Crappy WiFi is partially to blame for this, but mostly me. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs. Please enjoy and feel free to leave a comment or constructive criticism if you feel so inclined.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 24**

"Hey! You can't be here!" One of the two guards standing out the front of the main tower of Grandzam exclaims as they both move to block my path. "Excuse me, I'm more important than you." I respond, agilely ducking beneath their attempts to stop me. Marine will be entering with her guild, Angelic Light, so she's left me to find my own way in. I could always tell them I'm going to attend the meeting and send word ahead, but that'd be too easy and no fun. "Stop!" One of them yells at me as I advance up the stairs. "Why should I?" I ask, not stopping.

"There's an important meeting happening, we can't just let anyone in! Get back out here!"

"Yeah, I know, I'm attending, didn't you get my message?" I query with a slight smirk.

"No."

"Good." I reply with finality and speed up my ascension of the stairs.

No-one stops me until I reach the top of the stairs, out the front of the large doors to the room at the top of the tower. "Who're you supposed to be?" One of the two guards ask. Wow, déjà vu much? "Does it matter? I made it up here, so obviously I'm allowed. And really, you don't need to ask, everyone has their names on display above their heads for better or worse." I snap at them and they recoil a little. "Yeah, alright, I get it… Rin, huh? That username's so simple, it seems like it might be you're _real_ name." They say suspiciously, regaining their bravado.

"Wouldn't you like to know? Stalker, are we?" I reply smoothly before looking up at their username. I have to internally fight myself so that I don't burst out laughing. "With a name like yours, I'm not surprised that you're stuck with guard duty, can't let the kids see that." I tell them.

"Wha… hey!"

"Know what's even worse than guard duty? Guard duty… IN A SAFE ZONE!" I yell the last part at them, making them take a step back. I take the opportunity to step forward, grabbing the guard by the shoulders and throwing them down the stairs behind me. They'll be fine. "Whoa, calm down, man!" The other guard says, approaching me and I turn my suddenly hateful gaze onto them.

"Wanna follow your mate, mate?" I ask ominously and they step aside.

I open the doors to the room slightly, making sure that the handle moves silently. Now that it's only just ajar, I put all the force I can muster (not a terribly large amount, but enough) into a kick that sends the doors flying open and they swing around, hitting the walls with a loud crashing noise. I walk into the room, instantly regretting my actions as every eye in the room falls to me. There's a lot of eyes. I feel my face start to redden, until I hear a detestably familiar voice. "…Rin?" They ask and I look over to see Heathcliff sitting in his chair at the other end of the semicircular room. Obviously feigning pleasure, I reply. "Heath-prick! How are you?"

"I'm quite alright, thank you," He responds through pressed lips "how did you know about this meeting?"

"Oh, I have my ways. Your hidden files have proven very useful." I say with a mischievous smile, I have no clue what his secret files say, heck, I don't even know if they exist, but it appears that I've ruffled some feathers so to speak. Heathcliff's whispering something to one of the two attendants that are standing behind him (what is it with this place and the number two? OCD?) and they nod, hastily walking around the room to the door and descending the stairs.

The semicircular table has had its length extended on both sides so that more people can sit at it. I help myself to a chair close enough to the door so that I can make a speedy getaway, if necessary, far away enough from Heathcliff so that I won't get pissed off by his presence (it's bad enough that I'm in his castle), yet close enough to the centre so that I won't look like that one weird guy on the end. As one might deduce, I have thought this out to some degree. It looks as if people are still making their way in as there are still many seats to fill. Heathcliff's obviously taken the seat in the middle having elected himself most important, I recognise the Aincrad Liberation Front's armour on two of the retainers of a man sitting in a chair beside Heathcliff about a metre to his right. Some smaller, but not necessarily weak, guild leaders are also present.

I wait around as more people fill up the room, I notice Angelic Light's representatives with their distinctive white and gold armour. A few solo players also enter, some preferring to stand rather than sit as they are alone. In another ten minutes, it appears that everyone who is supposed to be present is here, because Heathcliff stands and get everyone's attention. "Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention." He calls. "For too long have-" He continues, but he's interrupted, and to my surprise, the person cutting across is not me (and can I just add that I am _very_ impressed with my newfound self-restraint). "We know what the situation is and why we're here! Just get to the nitty-gritty!" The person tells Heathcliff, who looks as if someone's shoved a rotting fish beneath his nose. "Very well." He replies in the stern tone he took when speaking to me. I don't know who spoke up, but I think we could get along famously.

"Here is what we know: Laughing Coffin has a base somewhere between floors twenty-three and twenty-seven. We need to find them and apprehend their members to prevent them continuing their murderous spree." Heathcliff said, clearly disappointed that he wasn't able to draw out the issue any further, much to the relief of the entire room's population. "That's a very large area." Someone points out and Heathcliff nodded. "Correct, that is why we have called on the assistance of all those present today. We intend to spread out across these floors and sweep over them until we find and capture them."

"Our actions will not go unnoticed." The leader of Angelic Light speaks up. "We are largely a collection of front-line guilds, we're well known, they will see us and scatter."

"Well obviously we'll be splitting up." The ALF leader replies before looking to Heathcliff. "Right?" Heathcliff nods. "Yes, I intend to have groups composed of members of several guilds assigned to areas of the floors in question." He explained. "This operation may take several days, but it is something that must be done to ensure everyone's safety. We will need all guilds' full co-operation for maximum effectiveness." I tuned out as Heathcliff continued to list of several other blatantly obvious statements and as various guilds tried to negotiate how many people they were expected to put towards the effort, essentially trying to help by doing as little as possible.

I started paying attention again when they started dishing out territories to scour for player killers, because this part concerns me. Apparently solo players get to choose which group they join because they're not really affiliated with anyone. Oh crap, that's me! Ever since Shino died (*sob*) I've never even thought of the fact that I'm now a solo player rather than part of a duo. Wow, I feel so alone. I listen in on which guilds are covering which areas, and I hear something that piques my interest. "Five people from Angelic Light, four from ALF and five from KOB and half of Shadowmare will investigate the northern area of floor twenty-three." Heathcliff says and I bite my thumb thoughtfully. There's a player killing guild here? They must be able to put on a convincing front if they can get into this sort of meeting. Another solo player – Kirito, I think his name reads – volunteers to accompany the group. I can't remember why, but I get the feeling I've met him before and I didn't like him.

Alright, I won't join that one, but if only half of Shadowmare are there, where's the other half? The answer to this comes in Heathcliff's next assignment. "The remaining half of Shadowmare, five people from Angelic Light, three from Aincrad Liberation Front and Knights of the Blood Oath will scour the southern area of floor twenty-three." I stand up as Heathcliff finishes.

"I will accompany them." I announce and Heathcliff sighs.

"Yes, yes, very well." He replies, obviously glad to get me out of his hair, and I sit back down. Now that I think about it, floor twenty-three is where Shadowmare have their headquarters, isn't it? It seems suspicious to me that they'd have their whole guild on one floor. Well, it would _seem_ suspicious if I didn't know they were a red guild, but I do know that, so I _know_ that something's going to go down on floor twenty-three. The rest of the meeting passes in a blur for me as other teams are organised and meeting times are established. All that matters to me is that I have to be at the central town on floor twenty-three tomorrow at dawn.

I spend the night in the inn near Grandzam Castle, bad memories making me barricade every possible entrance with all the furniture in the room. Lying on the bed, I open my inventory and set an alarm for twenty minutes before the meeting time and close my eyes, praying that sleep will come to me easily. Strangely enough, it does.

The alarm blares at me angrily and I sit up rapidly. Geez, who chose this alarm noise? It sounds like a train and a truck colliding at high speeds while someone drags their fingers down a blackboard in the background! Oh wait, no, I selected it. Purely because I know that I hate it and it would serve as some extra incentive to get up. Sighing, I stand and walk over to the window and pull away the chairs I had used to ensure that it stayed shut. I jump out the window, fall two stories and land on the cobblestone street, scaring the living daylights out of someone who was walking by and nearly became my cushion. "AAAAAAAAAHH!" They yell at the top of their lungs and I slap them across the face. "Idiot, everyone's still asleep!" I snap, ignoring my suddenly empty bladder. "Be more considerate!" With this, I turn and head towards the centre of town. It's not like I was in the wrong in that situation.

From the centre of Grandzam, I teleport to floor twenty-three, find where our group had arranged to meet and sit down in a nearby chair to wait for the others to arrive. People start to show up shortly after my arrival and my group starts to gather around me. Following in the steps of their prick-of-a-leader, the players from KOB decide that they're in charge of the group and start giving everyone their orders. No-one really protests though, I mean, I don't like Heathcliff, but that doesn't mean I have a problem with the rest of the guild. Except Ereni. Screw that guy.

Our group numbers twenty-four (twelve members from Shadowmare), and we set off into the wilderness after a short tactics meeting. A KOB member leads the group while the three AIF members make up the middle of the group with their identical sets of heavy armour. As a solo player, everyone correctly assumes that I'm better then everyone present, so I'm one step behind the leader, with the two remaining KOB members at my back (I think Heathcliff had something to do with that). Three Angelic Light members bring up the rear, with the remaining two in the centre with the AIF soldiers. Shadowmare's troops are on the edges, six to a side; a formation that has me _very_ concerned, if we're attacked by player killers (for I have no doubt that Laughing Coffin knows of this operation), then they are in the best positions to join in and put the majority against us. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if this whole outing was just one large trap.

Unsurprisingly, our search throughout the whole day proves fruitless. I say it comes as no surprise because it is the members of Shadowmare that are directing us, however I keep my scepticisms to myself. We camp out that night at the southernmost point on the floor, in a spot that the Shadowmare members 'guaranteed' the safety of. I find the fact that it is at the bottom of a ten-metre-deep and three-metre-wide ravine to be highly contradictory. Oh, how easy it would be to conceal people just before the edge of the ravine! The simplicity of trapping the twelve non-Shadowmare players in this spot! The utter _stupidity_ of the KOB member who condoned staying in this spot! I have the completed map data for this floor, as does everyone present, and it is plain to see that this ravine runs to a dead end! This whole scenario has wholesale slaughter written all over it in blood.

 **Well that's finished. Now, I** _ **do**_ **know where I'm going with the next chapter, it's mostly planned out, but I ask you to please not get overly excited and expect it within a short period of time (if the past is anything to go by). That said, I shall endeavour to complete it within the next fortnight, as I currently have spare time oozing out of every pore (yum, there's a mental image). Anyway, until next time, SemiInsaneCentipede out.**


	25. Chapter 25

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twenty-fifth chapter of Player Killer Killer. I have to say, I'm rather proud of myself for completing this chapter within a few days of the last. I'll try to make a habit of it. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs. Please enjoy.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 25**

It's night. I'm lying awake on my bedroll, waiting for a surprise attack that I know will happen. While I know that it will occur – and it _will_ occur – I do not know where my future foes are, who they well be (to some degree), or where they are currently. All I do is lie on my back, rapier at my side and hand folded over my stomach, feeling the rise and fall of my stomach. The crystals on the bottom of the above floor are glittering alluringly, but I shall not fall prey to their hypnotic illusion and drop my guard. Something many people here fail to remember is that everything that we see is but a pixel and individually devoid of meaning. Now yes, while one could argue that they have strength in numbers, it serves my purpose now to look at them as mere vessels of a single colour, an imitation of life (which is also an R.E.M. song, but that's not my point).

I have heard accounts from war veterans that possibly the worst part of war can be the waiting. Waiting for conflict, for violence, for death. Now, I dare not compare myself to those soldiers who give their lives for their friends, family and country in war, for this is but a game. I also won't say that I can understand how they felt, for the situations are not identical and that would also be disrespectful. I will, however, say that I agree. Yes. The waiting. The insufferable waiting. I am waiting for an event that will surely result in the deaths of those around me. Yes. The waiting is the worst.

I close my eyes, not to sleep, but to _listen_. I hear the wind, it is light and taunting, what can it see that I can't? Some pseudo-insect is chirping, shut the hell up, you annoying program. I can hear the breathing of those around me, good, they are not dead yet. I cannot discern the Shadowmare members' breathing from the others, I cannot tell who knows of the massacre to come. I know nothing of the situation around me, but I do have a plan. It is safe to assume that the attackers will use the Cat's Eye skill to enhance their night-time vision, this is something that I can prey on by creating light, a lot of it, which is something that I have the ability to do.

I open my eyes and slowly move a hand to the handle of my rapier, which lies drawn on the bedroll at my side, its naked blade gently reflecting the light from the 'sky.' I didn't hear anything incriminating, but I had a premonition, a feeling. Somehow, I am able to stay calm despite know that I am about to be attacked. Assaulted with all manners of swords, axes, lances, ma- ahem, daggers, projectiles and poisons, yet I am able to maintain completely tranquil and unshaken. Many of those around me will probably fall, but it's like their survival is secondary. And why shouldn't they be? If I can't ensure my own safety, how can I assure theirs? If I can't live, how will I know if they will? The crunch of boot on dirt tears me from my thoughts and my eyes shoot wide open and my grip tightens on my rapier. I bring my knees to my chest and force myself up to a standing position. Before I'm even sure of my footing, I lunge out behind myself with and underhand slash, my blade sparks as it collides with a red player's dagger and I subject them to an intense glare. "I will make you regret this day." My coarse voice tells them. Having astonished them briefly, I step away and pull my weapon to my face, the silver blade between my eyes, a rapidly growing, golden light spawns from the hilt and I hold my rapier high above my head.

All around me I hear exclamations of surprise as our attackers are momentarily blinded by my light. This move is called Angelic Light, and it's no coincidence that Marine's guild shares this name. Back when it was a small guild, the leader was known for excessive use and abuse of this sword skill. My light fades and it seems that everyone is awake, assailants and assailed alike. Darkness returns and confusion sets in. "What is going on?" Someone yells.

"Someone's attacking me!" Another cried, this was followed by the sound of shattering glass and a red shower illuminating the area, bathing everyone in a dull crimson glow. "You must all fight to live!" I bark at everyone. "We've been betrayed by Shadowmare!" _I also wouldn't be surprised if there were some Laughing Coffin players here as well_ , I add mentally. The night lights up as everyone repeatedly uses sword skills to survive and create light, unable to tell friend from foe, all we know is that it is death to let anyone else's light touch us. I duck away from an attack coming my way and crouch to the ground, invisible in the darkness as I activate Cat's Eye for myself. My vision goes from a monochrome black to a variety of green hues, I can see the footprints of everyone and their forms wielding weapons with blinding multi-coloured blades.

This is chaos, even if we can see each other with Cat's Eye, we still cannot tell each other apart, not only will this be a slaughter, but we'll all unknowingly tear each other apart! I neglect offense and change my fighting style to an entirely defensive stance while I get my mind sorted. I avoid attacks from two people on either side of me, ducking, dodging, deflecting, weaving, parrying and blocking, anything to not get hit! For if someone hits me, I may accidentally kill them in retaliation, only to find that they were on my side all along.

My mind begins to analyse the situation. I know who the ALF members are as they are all in heavy armour, so their forms are larger in every aspect, so they are on my side. The AL members armour generally looks like a type of robe on either top or bottom, if not all over, so I can rule out anyone with a flowing outline as an enemy. Shadowmare and KOB, however, their armour styles are indiscernible without colour to tell them apart. However, there's also another factor I need to consider: Laughing Coffin. The group that is technically not a guild has not set armour conventions and are therefore all anomalies. The attacker on my left is wearing some sort of poncho-thing, an item which KOB, ALF, AL and (maybe) Shadowmare would never be caught dead in. I parry their next attack and use execution to murder them. Stepping through the rain of red, I focus on my other attacker, who wears heavy armour. "You're with ALF, right? I'm on your side!" I hiss at them, but they do not falter in their attacks. "How do I know I can trust you?" They asked, my most recent murder and red player tag probably don't help my situation. "I'm the solo player in the group!" I respond. "Get out of here, it's a slaughterhouse!" I tell them, lowering my weapon and stepping back. "R-right." They stammer, regardless of whether or not they believe me, escaping should be a high priority of theirs.

I watch as my armoured ally lumbers away as fast as they can to the mouth of this trench before turning my green glare back to the battle at hand. Ah, what a mess. The player killers must have some way of distinguishing each other from their prey, but I don't have time to ponder what it could be as a bright light appears to my left and shatters. Crap, someone else has been killed, what to do? Ah-ha! I have an idea! I turn off Cat's Eye so that I don't blind myself as I use angelic light once more. The light only lasts a second, but it's enough. I rush over to two AL members who are duelling and grab their shoulders. "You two are guild-mates!" I snap as both of them gasp and look at me. "Run! Get out of here! I'll make sure no-one goes after you." They both nod and sprint off. Panting, I observe the fight scene before me, flashes and sparks everywhere, contrails and afterimages everywhere, making this all seem like a surreal dream, or possibly an incredibly deadly disco party.

I use angelic light once more to gain a sight of the chaos. I see a KOB member with their back to me bring their longsword down on a Shadowmare assassin and spraying red polygons into the air to be blown away by the slight wind. "Someone get that bastard!" I hear a rough female voice growl and in the fading light I see an unusually dressed player covering their eyes. She must be their leader, I conclude. As darkness shrouds my surrounds once more, I see three disturbingly close glowing weapon blades and hastily activate mirage blade to defend myself. The light from or four weapons is enough to show me that I have three Shadowmare-affiliated attackers. As my blue shield fades away, I take a step back and use blade rain. My first jab catches an assailant in the centre of the chest, and I am unable to stop a wolf's grin creeping over my face as the remaining four stabs all hit their mark and I follow up my attack with a normal thrust to rob them of their life. I dodge a glowing yellow axe sweep and use straight strike and stab my enemy through the neck and they too shatter into crystalline shapes. I turn to face my third foe, only to see them fragment before my eyes, and in the dull red glow the lightly falling triangles create, I see the same KOB member from before.

"Rin?" They ask as darkness hides our forms once more.

"Yes, that's me." I reply and by some unspoken signal, we both turn our backs on each other and step back, I feel the other player's back against mine, both our weapons at the ready. "Look's like we're both murderer's, huh?" He muses distastefully.

"So it would seem." I answer in the same disgusted tone. "I don't believe I know who you are."

"Name's Shin-Jin. What say we help each other out?" He asks, despite already knowing what my response will be. I grunt in agreement. "Are your two guild-mates still alive?" I ask and Shin-Jin hisses in annoyance. "Not sure."

"You got Cat's Eye on?"

"Yes."

"Turn it off, it's about to get bright." I warn and he chuckles humourlessly, after a few seconds he speaks. "Alright, let's go."

I pull my rapier to my face and hold it up golden light emerges from the hilt and bathes everything in colour. "There." Shin-Jin points to where an ALF and a KOB member are desperately fighting for survival. "You take your man." I tell him and we sprint for them. I cannot see who is attacking the ALF member, but I can see their glowing weapon, it's a sword, so it's rather obvious where the person holding it is. At my high speed, I body slam the attacker away roughly. The ALF member must be using Cat's Eye because they mutter "Woah."

"Quick, get out of here! I'll cover you!" Much like the other ALF member I saved earlier, they don't question my orders and run off to the mouth of the trench as fast as their heavy armour will allow them, they are quickly caught up with and overtaken by the KOB member that Shin-Jin went after. I see Shin-Jin in the glow of yet another killed assailant and I use Angelic Light to see the person I body slammed picking themselves up off of the ground. A quick stab to the forehead stops them permanently.

"Why hasn't anyone killed him yet?!" The one I assume to be the leader screams with her eyes covered yet again. Darkness seeps back in and I hear the sound of an inventory closing beside me. "What say we get out of here, Rin?" Shin-Jin asks me and I smirk.

"Angelic light?" I query with a grin.

"On three." He replies, I can hear the amusement in his words. "Three, two, ONE!" He yells and light emerges from the hilts of both our weapons simultaneously, bringing on another round of curses from our assailants. After a few preliminary skips backward, we both turn tail and sprint away to join those whom we saved, after a few steps, it becomes clear that I have invested more effort in movement speed and pull ahead of my new friend.

I wait for Shin-Jin at the beginning of the trench and when he catches up, we walk together over to where we can see the players whom were spared an early death. They are all panting, all on edge, several of them have torches burning away in their hands. "Did we leave too early?" I ponder.

"There was nothing more that we could do back there aside from murder." Shin-Jin tells me. "Besides, you weren't the only one with the idea to get the innocents to safety." I look up at the group as we approach to find that the situation is much more optimistic than I had initially thought. "Shin-Jin!" The one other KOB member present exclaims and comes running over. Shin-Jin does not share in his comrade's enthusiasm. "How many did we lose?" He asks bluntly and the player thinks briefly. "Well, we lost one from AIF, three from AL, um, Hansen died." At this, Shin-Jin hisses angrily, Hansen must have been the one in charge. "And from Shadowmare… well, I don't see any of them here." I step in and wave aside the last snippet of information.

"Shadowmare betrayed us, they are no longer in this group. Sounds to me like five people died." I conclude and the KOB player's eyes widen at my abruptness. "Rin…" I hear him mutter beneath his breath. "Yes?" I ask, a hint of anger in my tone, the player does not respond, so Shin-Jin steps in.

"Worry not, Rin. Us KOB members were told to watch you carefully and regard you with animosity." He tells me. "It seems that you and Heathcliff have a bad history." He adds almost as an afterthought. "Now, Kobano, Rin here saved most of the people you see here, I don't care what Heathcliff said, you will treat him with respect, if not friendship." He tells his fellow guild member, who sighs in relief. "Thank god, I'm not very good at being mean to people anyway." Kobano replies.

We learn from an ALF member that the other group on floor twenty-three has been contacted and that they are on their way to assist us in any way that they can. In the meantime, Shin-Jin and I stand watch to make sure no enemies approach us from the trench. One of the AL players starts a small fire and procures a pot (much better than my crappy little one) and begins cooking straight away as they used a special potion to turn the firewood to hot ash in an instant. Some half an hour later, Shin-Jin and I have hot bowls of soup in our hands, which we slowly consume. There's something about Shin-Jin, I don't know, I just like him. He's not an exceptionally nice person, but I know that he's someone that can be trusted, in fact, it's not hard for me to see him in my shoes, which, I guess, he is in now that we're both murderers. There was no hesitation to his actions as he cut through his enemies and he was able to accept in that moment that it was either he killed them or was killed himself. He is someone whom I can respect easily.


	26. Chapter 26

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twenty-sixth chapter of Player Killer Killer. It's been a bit of a wait for you guys, but it's finally here. Call me an many-legged bug with only half its sanity, but I didn't realise that I'd already completed this chapter some time ago and had forgotten to post it.**

 **Sorry.**

 **I do not own Sword Art Online, I only own my OCs.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 26**

"They're here!" Someone nearby calls out, hope in their voice.

"Finally!" Another exclaims. I look over and see a group of people from several different guilds marching towards us with urgency. "Looks like we've got company." I relay to Shin-Jin, who is sitting on the ground and grunts acknowledgement, placing his half-empty soup bowl at his feet. "'Bout time." He responds gruffly and I let out a humourless snigger. "Ah well, let's go meet them." He sighs, picking up his bowl, standing up and sculling the rest of its contents. "My compliments." He says as he tosses his bowl back to the Angelic Light member who cooked and distributed the soup.

We stop walking and wait for the group to approach us and I notice something. "That group still has its Shadowmare members." I tell Shin-Jin, who brings a thumb to his lips in thought at the mention of the traitorous guild. "Then we'll have to talk separately." He responds. "Simple as that."

"Simple as that." I echo as the group halts before us. The remaining members of our group have gathered around us, it seems that the two of us have unanimously been elected leaders. "We heard you were under attack." The KOB member at the front of the other group says. "We came as quickly as we could."

"Which is why it's now mid-morning." Shin-Jin replies coolly. "Yes, I can see that you've really bent over backwards to ensure our safety." Oh-ho! I like this man even more now, who doesn't love a good sarcastic streak? "Yes well…" The KOB member grits their teeth "we're here now." He looks at our group as a whole. "Crap, you really have been butchered. Weren't there twenty-four or so of you? And where's Hansen?" Shin-Jin sighs at all these questions.

"Why don't we discuss this privately, let your group rest after their _long_ and _speedy_ journey." He replied. Oh man, he's on a roll now.

Sigmund, the KOB leader of the other group brings along Kirito, the solo player in his group, and the four of us speak in hushed tones. "We were betrayed by Shadowmare." Shin-Jin tell the other two bluntly. "Hansen's dead, as are four others. Rin and I managed to save the other five that survived."

"Good job." Sigmund tells us genuinely. "Shadowmare, huh? Are they really player killers?"

"Yes." I tell him firmly. "I've dealt with them before, they are affiliated with Laughing Coffin and Knights of the Dark. All of them are murderers."

"When were you planning on sharing this information?" Kirito asks and my mind clicks. Now I remember who he is, finally decided to recognise my existence, huh? "At a time when the information was relevant." I snap in return. "No-one trying to investigate player killers has decided to be open with me in the way of information, so how should I know if you people even _want_ to know. Also because no-one's asked."

"Well, that's enlightening." Sigmund sighs. "But to the situation at hand, what do we do about this Shadowmare problem?" Personally, I would suggest we kill them all, and I'm getting the feeling that Shin-Jin is feeling the same way, of course, neither of us voice our thoughts. "We'd have to arrest them, wouldn't we?" Kirito asks. "I mean, that _is_ what we are here to do, arrest player killers, that is."

"Hmm." Shin-Jin agrees with a nod, a gesture that I imitate. It sounds like a much more socially acceptable option than the one I would have suggested. "How should we go about it?" Sigmund asks, casting his gaze over to where our two groups were mingling. I wonder if anyone from my group remembers me yelling out that it was Shadowmare that had betrayed us. Looking around the group, it seems that my warning has been forgotten. "We'll need to be stealthy, get as many of them as we can before they notice what's going on." I offer and Shin-Jin nods his silent agreement.

"That's a good idea." Sigmund approves. A thought comes to my mind.

"Actually, how _do_ we arrest someone? Is there an in-game mechanism? Do we need some special authority or skill?" I ask.

"You've never arrested someone before?" Kirito queries somewhat incredulously and I sneer in return. "Brilliant deduction, dumbass." I snap. "Remain silent unless you're gonna explain to me how it works."

It turns out that there is no mechanism for arresting someone outside of a safe zone, so we need to detain the members of Shadowmare in such a way so that we can get them back to a safe zone and arrest them officially. However, apparently only yellow and red marked players can be arrested, so all of these Shadowmare members will be imprisoned in Grandzam, where Heathcliff has personal control of the jail and can throw people in as he pleases, without the need for a system-recognised police officer or other authority. Thankfully, Sigmund brought _a lot_ of rope. Sigmund has enough rope on his person to make one very nervous, it also didn't help when he couldn't give Kirito a straight answer when he asked as to just _why_ he needed so much rope.

The four of us devised a plan and we set about its completion as covertly as we could. There were twelve Shadowmare members present (the same amount that had initially been in our group), but combined, there were nineteen people with other affiliations, if we banded together, we would have the majority and therefore the advantage. Shin-Jin and I walked around as a pair. We walked casually over to where the two remaining ALF members sat with the last two AL players. "What's going on?" One of the AL players asks us.

"Yeah," questions the other "weren't Shadowmare trying to kill us just before?" Oh good, so they didn't forget my warning. "Yes, they were." Shin-Jin confirms.

"We're going to arrest them all." I tell them, ensuring that I keep my voice down. "To do that, we need your help." The four lean in eagerly to listen.

Five minutes later, Shin-Jin and I slowly approach Sigmund, who is hunkered down on the ground and drawing small, meaningless figures on the ground. "We're done." Shin-Jin tells him and he stands, sighing. "Alright, let's get this over with." He mutters, nodding to Kirito, to whom he had given a large amount of rope earlier. The four of us march out in front of our mingling groups and stand in a line. "Everyone!" Sigmund calls out for attention and the group's low murmur of conversation drops to silence. "Thank you, now, for the purpose of seeing just who we have left after the anonymous attack on Hansen's half of the twenty-third floor search squad, I would like you all to line up before me in your guilds." There was a general hum of activity as the players complied to Sigmund's demands. Of course, anyone who actually thinks about what's going on here for more than a second could easily guess that something was up, especially since Sigmund specified the purpose of this activity to be counting people. Something that could easily have been done earlier. Thankfully, no-one from Shadowmare raises their voices about it if they realised this.

After a few moments of silence as Sigmund made sure everyone was in their guilds and that Shadowmare was at the centre of everyone, Sigmund stepped forward, towards the Shadowmare group, Kirito, Shin-Jin and I also advance, and as per our instructions, so does everyone not in Shadowmare. "Hey, what's going on?" A Shadowmare player asks, their breaking of the silence serving as a trigger for all present. Abruptly, Sigmund lunges forward grabs the nearest Shadowmare player, spins them around and forces them to their knees. Similar actions are undertaken by most others, forcing Shadowmare to submit, any of those that were not holding one of the offending guild's members was ensuring that those that struggled remained held onto as Kirito walked around with the rope and tired the hands of them all.

As the now-all-tied-up members of Shadowmare are forced to sit in a disgruntled and connected line, Shin-Jin, Sigmund and I set about disarming the Shadowmare members, removing their weapons and rifling through their inventories for anything that could potentially be used as a weapon. "Why are you people doing this?!" One of them yells at me.

"Because you and your guild are guilty of murder, and if not, then an accessory to murder." I reply in a monotone. "Oh yeah?! Well that's pretty rich coming from a RED PLAYER! Seriously, you hypocrites! There are two of them, and NO-ONE CARES?!" They yell and I punch them across the face. "Imbecile." I mutter. Unfortunately, it seems that the player's outburst has had its intended effect and people are looking to the sky for everyone's player markers. There are a few yellows among the green, but Shin-Jin and my red markers stick out worse than some of the pimples I've had outside of this game.

"Shin-Jin, what is the meaning of this?" Sigmund asks, suddenly very alert. Shin-Jin licks his lips, the first sign of nervousness I've ever seen him show. "We were attacked, and it was the only way to ensure our group's survival." He explains, his voice carrying a strange edge to it. "Shin-Jin… I…" Sigmund stammers, before appearing to steel his resolve. "Please," he says, pulling out some rope from his inventory "come quietly, I'm sure we can sort this all out at Grandzam." Shin-Jin sighs and holds out his hands in surrender. "No need to make this any worse than it is." He mutters as Sigmund ties his hands. Sigmund knots the rope and looks to me. "Rin, please, come quietly." He pleads. I sigh and – after casting a lethal glare at the Shadowmare player that had made the outburst – hold my hands out and let Sigmund tie my hands with the same length of rope that binds Shin-Jin. I notice that the Shadowmare players are joined by a separate rope to Shin-Jin and mine's.

I also notice that Shin-Jin and I are allowed to keep our weapons, a fact that does not go unannounced by the Shadowmare group. "Why aren't you disarming them?" They complain loudly and one of the AL players slaps them hard across the face leaving a red outline of the back of their palm on them. "Because they're not psychopaths like you and your group, now shut the hell up and _walk_." The last word is emphasised by a knee to the Shadowmare player's stomach. I look closer at the Angelic Light player, they look familiar, I think they were in my group? As we walk towards the nearest town, the AL player walks up beside me and is silent for a moment. "I'm a friend of Marine." He tells me after a while. "I heard you helped her a lot, I thought you'd like to know that she's doing quite well in the guild at the moment. Also… you saved my life earlier, there's no way I would have been able to survive the attack without you and Shin-Jin." I look over at them, dropping my default scowling face for a moment. Their name is Terran, I acknowledge. "I've talked with some of the others in our group," he continues in a more urgent and hushed manner "we're going to try to defend you." I nod to Terran and he casually drops behind in the group to guard the Shadowmare chain once more while I digest this little morsel of information.

As the sun begins to set, we arrive within the safe zone of a town and march towards its centre. Sigmund is the first to teleport to Grandzam, followed by Shin-Jin and I as the person holding our length of rope also teleports to Grandzam. The player holding my rope quickly pulls us away from the teleportation point just as all the Shadowmare players burst into existence, still bound by their rope, but in one large heap on the ground. We are walked through Grandzam town and into the fortress at its centre where I see my dearly detested Heathcliff waiting for us, a devious gleam in his eye.

Ah crap, I know he'll try his hardest to screw me over.

 **I'll give a proper author's note at the end of the next chapter, which I will be posting on the same day. This is not like what I did some time earlier, that was on purpose, this was a coincidence born from stupidity. But yeah, have a nice day regardless.**


	27. Chapter 27

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twenty-seventh chapter of Player Killer Killer. It has taken me a solid too long to get this chapter out. So with only slightly more ado do I present to you the next chapter. I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs.**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 27**

The Shadowmare players are lined up in Grandzam's courtyard, all joined by a long length of rope with their hands bound. Heathcliff marches up and down the line several times in silence, probably basking in the glow of attention and self-importance. Shin-Jin and I are off to the side, still bound together at the wrists, with Sigmund holding our shorter cord. Sigmund's face looks calm, but the knuckles on his hand holding our rope are white and showing through painfully. The darkened sky seems to be in waiting, all are tense beneath it in our torchlit stone area, with nothing but Heathcliff's heavy footsteps to break the silence.

As a huge anticlimax to the tension that was created, Heathcliff doesn't even break the silence and walks over to another KOB member and talks to them quietly. After a few moments, the member nods and leads the Shadowmare players into one of Grandzam's many towers and down into the darkness of the dungeons. In my fixation on the Shadowmare players, I do not notice a rather large presence in front of me and I start slightly as I look up at the shadow that Heathcliff casts over me. "Rin." Is all he says, and I remain silent, I'd rather not provoke him when he's in the position of power. Seeing that he'll get nothing from me, he looks to Sigmund and Shin-Jin. "What's going on here?" Sigmund looks away, but Shin-Jin – who almost matches Heathcliff in height – looks Heathcliff in the eyes and responds.

"During the night of our search of the twenty-third floor, our group was betrayed and attacked by the members of Shadowmare with the intent to kill." He tells the larger man. "In the desperate frenzy of activity, the only way that Rin and I could ensure the safety of those still alive in the group was to eliminate the enemy." His voice is strong, honest, upstanding and lets me see that he is prepared to accept whatever may come. Heathcliff is silent, his demeanour doesn't strike me as convinced. "Do you have anyone who can testify to this?" He asks finally and Shin-Jin tilts his head towards me. "Rin can. Although, you probably won't accept that as he is also accused." Shin-Jin replies carefully. "Try asking the survivors we saved, but I doubt they saw much; it was very dark."

Heathcliff is idle for a time, then he turns and says a few quiet words to a subordinate and marches away. Within the next ten minutes, Shin-Jin and I are separated and taken to different rooms in Grandzam's main tower. It's a dull room that is shaped like a quarter-circle and only sports one window, I do not think that this room has ever been used before, as the only things adorning it are the torches on the walls. There's not even anywhere civil to sit, I note irritably as I march over to the room's stone, curved wall and sit cross-legged facing the door and leaning back onto the wall with my arms crossed over my chest. I close my eyes and try to get some rest.

The sound of the door opening rouses me from a dream I never realised I was having. I don't remember what it was about, but I think that it was a sad one given that I had to wipe away a solitary tear before I stood. Sigmund stands in the doorway and beckons me over. "Heathcliff has spoken with all the survivors of your group from last night, he'll see you now to deliver his verdict."

"Will he now?" I reply dryly as I approach. "Wouldn't be like him at all to take justice into his own hands at all, would it?"

During my third visit to the top floor of Grandzam tower, I stand next to Shin-Jin as the two of us stand before Heathcliff, who sits in his usual spot at the centre of attention. Sigmund and a few others stood behind us, and two rows of other KOB members stand in front of the door. It's almost like they don't want us to escape. I mean, the best way would be to tie our hands again, and maybe tie that rope to something stationary, but maybe that's too logical and what Heathcliff wants is a display of power. Heathcliff stares at us silently, possibly trying to build up suspense. Shin-Jin, I see, meets his gaze coolly, I consider doing the same, but I'd prefer it if Heathcliff didn't stain my field of vision. He remains quiet for a full minute. "Are you gonna say anything, or can we go now?" I ask into the silence and Heathcliff sighs at his ruined mood.

"Shin-Jin and Rin, you are both guilty of player killing, and after conferring with witnesses, we can confirm your claims that it was in self-defence." Heathcliff tells us. "What say you to this?"

"Can we go now?" I ask. "Nothing wrong with self-defence, is there?" Heathcliff looks to me, there's a glint in his eye that I do not like the look of. "If I might, Rin, I would question your character." He says and I furrow my brow. "Are we… having the same conversation still? Or have we moved on?" I look up at Shin-Jin in confusion. "Have we moved on?" I ask, but Heathcliff is already speaking again.

"You strike me as an opportunist, Rin, and I put it to you that when attacked, sure, you acted in self-defence, but you also took advantage of the situation and went out of your way to kill the members of Shadowmare."

"What, are you that desperate to imprison me? Did Shadowmare pay you off or something? Or are you just thirsty for self-importance?" I reply. "Besides, shouldn't a lawyer say something like that, not the self-proclaimed judge?"

A shockwave of unease goes through the room and a faint mumbling can be heard from the back of the room. "I would testify that Rin did not engage in such blatant acts of violence, he only acted to protect the others." Shin-Jin speaks for the first time and Heathcliff looks to him, unable to keep the scowl off of his face. "We can't win this." I mutter quietly, murder manifesting in my eyes as they outline Heathcliff's armoured figure. "This is all a display, we were never going to get away in the first place." I look up to Shin-Jin, hmm, maybe he will as a member of KOB, but I believe that Heathcliff has it in for me. There was never going to be any justice. I believe that this issue has only gone as far as it has because Heathcliff heard that I was involved, and he has a personal vendetta against me (no, I'll not deny that I hate him back).

"What's it gonna be, Heathcliff?" I ask, interrupting something that Shin-Jin was saying while I was lost in thought. "You've obviously already decided on an outcome, so why not let the cat out of the bag and just tell us what it is." Shin-Jin looks at me strangely, but I think he understands, Heathcliff grumbles discontentedly. "Very well," he says poisonously "Rin, you will be locked up in Grandzam's jail, Shin-Jin, as one who was manipulated into killing by Rin, you will be free to go as you were under duress." I huff irritably and Shin-Jin recoils as if struck.

"What is this?" Shin-Jin exclaims. "I'll not tolerate favouritism in a situation like this! I have done the same as Rin, and of my own accord, if I might add, so I shall be reprimanded the same!" Heathcliff opens his mouth to speak, but Shin-Jin continues. "Or is that the kind of person you are? One who would manipulate justice by calling yourself a judge and looking down on the rights of others simply because you have more power?" It was Heathcliff's turn to recoil now.

"Fine! You desire condemnation? Then you shall receive it!" Heathcliff roars, finally having snapped. "You can both rot in the prison for all I care, maximum sentence for you both!"

It was Heathcliff himself that locked the door to our cells, cursing angrily as he left the left the dungeon. I know that Heathcliff said we could 'rot in prison' and dished out the maximum sentence, but for a non-NPC person, maximum sentence is three months. If we had been taken to a system-allocated police NPC, then the sentence could very well have been longer. Sighing, I throw myself onto the stone bed in the cell, a regrettable action in hindsight. "Ow." I mutter, despite the game not actually allowing players to feel any pain. I snigger at the thought that maybe the amount of faith Heathcliff's followers lost in him today stings more that any stone bed could.

"So, Rin, what now?" Shin-Jin asks me from the cell across the room, I look over to see him leaning on the vertical bars lazily. "Well, all we _can_ do is wait, really." I reply. "But let's see if we can't improve our situation at all." Laying one leg over the knee of the other, I sit contemplatively on the bed. "I'm under the impression that you're rather popular among KOB, correct?" I ask him and he shrugs. "I am liked, I guess, people want me at their side when they fight."

"So there are those who would not be supportive of our imprisonment here?" I query and he grins.

"You have a plan to bust us out of here?"

"Oh no, we are going to serve our time, be under no illusions of that. I'm just suggesting that we do more than simply be bored in this crappy joint."

"What did you have in mind?" His smile had died, but now I could see it beginning to return.

"Cooking." I reply simply, and any trace of a grin leaves Shin-Jin's face.

"Cooking." He repeats, more of a statement than a question.

"Shin-Jin, how much time have you invested in the cooking skill?" I ask.

"Next to nothing." He answers and it is my turn to grin.

"Perfect."

 **I'll be honest, most of this chapter aside from the final paragraph had been completed for quite some time before I finally finished it off. I would like to draw your attentions to a fellow author, VampiricShadow, who asked me for some motivation and has since continued his/her writing with considerable gusto. I believe that they are still looking for beta readers and would appreciate any offered assistance. Well, that's all from me, so I'll see you all in the next chapter, which hopefully surfaces from the depths of my imagination before Christmas.**


	28. Chapter 28

**Hi everyone, SemiInsaneCentipede here with the twenty-eighth chapter of Player Killer Killer. It's been a while since the last update, but what's new there? I do not own SAO, I only own my OCs, please enjoy!**

 **Player Killer Killer**

 **Chapter 28**

Three months have passed since Shin-Jin and I were imprisoned. Using Shin-Jin's popularity among the KOB guild and the general dissatisfaction of the guild's members with our imprisonment, we have been cooking food and creating potions during our time. We were brought the news of bosses being beaten, important events and player deaths by these people whose faith in Heathcliff had been shaken. As floors were cleared, the two of us levelled up from our efforts so as to not fall behind. By the end of our sentence, we were both level eighty-eight and the floors up to seventy-five had been cleared, with its clearance well underway.

Ereni had become a regular face down in the dungeons, he was a supporter of Shin-Jin who had frequently brought us information and resources during our incarceration, but now he came to us with keys. Cell keys, specifically, that jangled with a sweet metallic sound as he swung them around on one finger. Over the months, I've come to not see him as such a pain in the backside, however, that he thinks he's as good as myself with a rapier lightly grates my nerves to dust. In all honesty, I don't dislike him, and during the second month, I entrusted him with an important mission.

Ereni, Shin-Jin and I stand in a grassy field outside of Grandzam, stretching and getting used to being back outside those dark stone walls again (which is an amusing thought, as we left the walls of a cell for the walls of a larger prison; Aincrad as a whole). After about five minutes, I turn to Ereni. "Have you made any progress on that job I gave you?" I ask, Ereni snaps to attention and Shin-Jin turns around to listen in. Ereni nods. "Yes, I've completed it, in fact." He tells me proudly.

"Please enlighten me." Shin-Jin interrupts and Ereni looks up at him, beaming.

"I found Laughing Coffin's headquarters." He says simply and Shin-Jin's eyes widened.

"I'm impressed, how did you manage that?" He asks and this time it's me who cuts in.

"By doing exactly what I told him to do."

"And what was that exactly?"

"I told him to find Laughing Coffin's headquarters." I reply dryly.

"Your group wasn't too far off three months ago, Rin." Ereni tells me. "It's on floor twenty-three, you and Shin-Jin were only two-and-a-half kilometres away from its entrance."

"How irritating." I mutter, but without any malice; there's no point in getting angry over something in the past like that now, I've learned that. I no longer pursue Laughing Coffin for revenge, but now because they need to be stopped. Have I forgotten about Shino's murder? Of course not, and I never will, and I doubt I'll ever forgive the murderer for as long as I live. However, I had time to think in that cell, and I've realised that I'll never fight as skilfully as I can if I always do it in the fit of red passion that's seized me with every clash with player killers, one of them could get lucky and hit me (just a hit though, nothing too special).

Ereni opens his map and shows me the location and I mark it on my own. Shin-Jin also marks it on his map and I look over. "Why are you doing that?" I ask.

"Because I'm coming with you." He replied, his tone brooks no argument, but I ignore it.

"Why? I'm doing this alone." I tell him forcefully.

"You can go alone if you like, but we will go alone together." He responds. Ereni licks his lips nervously. "Do you two need some time?" He asks. "If you don't want me to watch while you hug it out, that's f-" My player marker turns yellow as I use the Flaming Backhanded Bitch-Slap Attack (That's not its actual name, but I don't care and you can't make me) and he lands in the grass.

"Let me do this by myself." I tell Shin-Jin, attempting to stare him down, but our height difference works against me. "No." He replies simply, crossing his arms and widening his stance defiantly, I grit my teeth. "Why?"

"Because I'm your fr-"

"Don't say 'friend!'" I yell over him. "I won't deny that you are, but do I look like some shonen anime character? Let's not go through some elongated speech on the importance of friendship." Shin-Jin narrows his eyes, studying me critically. "What?" I ask, slightly concerned.

"Black hair, featureless face, unremarkable body shape and probably with very few controversial views." He says slowly. "Yes, you do look like a shonen anime character."

"He's not wrong." Ereni says, picking himself up.

"Don't you talk, my wannabe body-double." I snap at him.

"I don't suppose you unintentionally seduce every teenage female you come across?" Shin-Jin continues. "Alright, I get it; I've got mainstream genes, so what?" I interrupt and Shin-Jin smirks.

"We're coming with you." He tells me in a tone brooking no argument. I'm silent for a moment, but I realise that to argue further is pointless. "Please yourself. But I warn you, I'm crappy company."

After marching back into Grandzam's city centre, the three of us teleport to floor twenty-three. A thought struck me. "You two _are_ prepared to do this, right?"

"Yes!" Ereni replies instantly.

"How so? I am mentally prepared," Shin-Jin tells me "maybe I could have some more potions, but-"

"No buts!" I snap. "Anything that that you think you need, go and get now, anything you don't think you'll need, go and get that too, you'll probably need it." Shin-Jin regards me through new eyes.

"You've really become our commander, haven't you?" He whispers softly, as if the words were not meant to be heard, but they were ones that he needed to say. A slow smile creeps onto his face. "Very well, shall we regroup here in an hour?" He asks, and I nod seriously.

"Yes. Then we attack."

I spent the hour collecting herbs and making potent potions (no more potions of discolouration for me, HA HA!), potions to explode, to incinerate, to corrode, and some other ones described with cool words for destroying things. I made poisons to kill, to weaken, to blind, and some other debuffs, but mainly to kill. I returned to where the three of us had split off and found that the other two had changed their clothing, clothing that looked suspiciously similar to the magnificently styled and brilliantly flaunted garments equipped upon the person of yours truly. "What the hell did you two do?" I ask bluntly to their stupidly smiling faces.

"You see, Shin-Jin told me that you had become like a leader to us," Ereni explained "so we had the idea of actually making you our leader." Ereni steps closer to me to give me a better view. He wears a black tunic – like me – and black pants – also like me – however he also sports black pauldrons and upper-torso armour edged with a shade of green identical to mine own, he has greaves of the same colouring and a black gauntlet on his left hand. "Why did you leave your right hand naked?" I ask, preparing scathing replies for every possible reason that I can fathom him coming up with. "Asymmetry is all the rage now." He replies, and I remain silent. I have no response for such stupidity. What kind of dumbass places vanity over necessity? I hope he loses that arm. I look to Shin-Jin, he wears a long black cloak hemmed with green, and beneath that a black shirt and pants, however, the breadth of his arms suggests that he has armour on them beneath the cloak. That or he did the world's most intense gym session in the last hour and experienced the full effects instantly.

"Why do you dumbasses want me in charge?" I ask.

"By your actions, you already elected yourself leader," Shin-Jin responds "now we recognise it more officially."

"Right… Onwards, I guess." I say awkwardly. We walk towards our destination, after five minutes of blessed silence, Ereni opens his mouth. "So, what are we calling ourselves?" He asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, surely we want to be known by _something_ , so people look at us and say, 'look, there's so-and-so from that group that saved us from the player killers.'"

"Ereni, if you want me to call you a so-and-so, I will, with utmost heartfelt conviction." I tell him.

"I think it could be an idea to have a name." Shin-Jin butts in. "Besides, the talk will help to pass the time."

"Fine." I concede.

"The Three Musketeers?" Ereni suggests.

"No, there's probably copyright there somewhere. Besides, Shin-Jin doesn't use a rapier." I shoot down. "The Two Musketeers and a Swordsman?"

"Are you going to keep pushing this, or am I cutting down our group to 'One Musketeer and One Swordsman?'" Ereni pales at this.

"U-uh, so, Shin-Jin, any ideas?"

"The 'Like Hell I'll Die from Player Killers Battlefront?'"

"Too long." I dismiss.

"'Ik.'" Shin-Jin attempts, trying to right his previous wrong.

"Too short, also, what is that supposed to be?" I deny and Ereni throws his hands up in exasperation.

"Too long, too short, make up your mind!"

"Hey, I'm _very_ picky about my sizes." I snap and this gives Ereni pause.

"We _are_ still talking about names, right?"

"I'll put _your_ name on a grave." Ereni emits a scared yelp.

"'Player Killer Killers?'" Shin-Jin tries again.

"What kind of idiot would call their group that?" I reject with a dismissive wave. Ereni opens his mouth to speak, but I drown him out. "We shall have no name, for we will be the invisible saviours of the people, protecting them from a menace without their knowledge, meaning that they will never trouble with the thought of the player killers we slay." Shin-Jin looks up at the 'sky.'

"Ooh, I like that." He admits.

"So… how about 'Invisible Saviours?'" Ereni suggests innocently and I glare at him.

"Did you not hear a word I just said? How about I just cut your tongue out and be done with it?"

With that, I managed to scare Ereni into silence for the rest of the walk and we arrived out the front of the entrance to Laughing Coffin's base with out a hassle. A player coming out of the cave in the side of the rock formation saw us and spun around and sprinted back inside, yelling at the top of their lungs. Ereni drew his rapier. "Do we go after him?" I hold a hand up calmly.

"No, you couldn't kill him anyway, it's a safe zone down there, right? That's why they set up there." I tell him. "No, let them know we are here, let them feel the fear deep in their artificial veins. Let them tremble and scamper like mice in a panic while they try to think of how they will manage to survive. They are thieves, cut-purses and murderers who attack under the cover of night and from behind, we are fighters, and their judgement. We will cut through them like a blade through the air. Let them see that they have no hope. Let them know that they will die today. Let them realise that they have no chance if they do not fight. No, do not pursue them, let the come, and let them die."

Shin-Jin is respectfully silent. "So can we call ourselves 'Judgement?'" Ereni asks and I turn to him.

"If this group of ours lasts for long than this day, and we engage in other operations, you will be banned from hearing my monologues. See Shin-Jin? He is silent, he respects the thought and effort that goes into a monologue, you, contrarily, are a royal pain in the arse."

"Sorry." Ereni mumbles. At that moment I spot the glint of steel in the cave. They are finally here.

I couldn't help it, the wolf's grin possessed my face as I drew my weapon.

 **Ah yes, what's a long-awaited chapter without a cliff-hanger at the end? (I flatter myself with 'long-awaited') If you can't tell, Player Killer Killer is approaching the end of its story and has entered its final arc. (Saying my story has arcs makes me feel organised and smart) I hope you all look forward to reading my work as much as I look forward to writing it! Until the probably-in-a-month-based-off-of-past-examples-next-time, see you later!**


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